The Making of Harshit Rana: Inside a 150-kph dream

Last month, he made a head-turning Test debut against Australia in Perth, enacting the perfect second fiddle to Jasprit Bumrah in one of India’s most heroic victories abroad. He has become an overnight sensation, with former players and pundits touting him as the next big thing in India’s fast bowling stable.

But the bigger quest continues — breaching the 150-kph barrier. From the time he picked a cricket ball for the first time in his life, in his adolescence, 150 was the magic number that obsessed the father and son. Pradeep, a former hammer thrower and weightlifter for CRPF, laid a simple brief to his son: “If you bowl 150 kph, no one will stop you from playing for India but if you will bowl 125 kph, even a local club will not select you”.

Pradeep Rana points towards the fastest bowler award Harshit has won in the IPL. (Express Photo by Pratyush Raj)

Everything was channelled towards achieving the golden number — the back-breaking practice, the streak of ruthlessness and badtameezi that are his biggest weapons, according to coach Shravan Kumar, the snarls and stares at batsmen, the flying kisses at them, and an unbreakable spirit that made him wade through the dark days of injuries and flimsy prophecies. “Badtameez hai (he is ill-mannered). He is aggressive but in Harshit’s case he is ultra,” laughs the 72-year-old coach, who had coached former India quick Ishant Sharma. “That is his strength. He has played all his cricket with that attitude and it has helped him reach this level,” he adds.

After his exploits in the IPL, Harshit told this newspaper he won’t curb his aggression. “I have always played my cricket like this. I am a fun-loving guy off the field but on the cricket pitch, I am not there to make friends, I want to win,” he said.

In essence, he carries a slice of Ghevra’s nonchalance to the cricket field. The village, like its neighbourhood that wiggles across the Haryana-Delhi border, is more Haryana than Delhi in sensibilities. Just 12 km down the road is Najafgarh, which produced Virender Sehwag, one of the country’s greatest batsmen. An hour takes you to the SAI Centre in Sonepat, where the finest athletes train for the Olympics. The obscure diversions along the sprawling highway take you to the homes of the country’s finest wrestlers and boxers.

Yet, for a part of the country that accounts for a three-fourth of Olympic medals, it has designed few true fast bowlers. Most of the cricketers from Delhi have been either batsmen or medium pacers. The one genuine quick, Ishant Sharma, was from South Patel Nagar. Haryana churned arguably the greatest cricketer of the country, Kapil Dev, but he was not exactly a tearaway. There, thus, has been no one like Harshit to have worn the Test stripes, one who is all bark and bite, all pace and rage.

Harshit Rana’s father Pradeep Rana during his playing days. (Special Arrangement)

You would imagine speedsters like him popping from every corner of this pocket, all badtameezi and jigar (pluck), with the shoulders of Hercules and the will of Atlas. But surprisingly, they have not. In that sense, Harshit’s emergence has a wider potential, in turning the Olympics conveyor belt into a fast-bowling hub. Young men fired to nudge 150 kph. Like youngsters from Ranchi donning the gloves, growing long hair and blasting the ball over the cow cordon after their talisman MS Dhoni.

*****

Pradeep proudly points to the entrance gate of his village, dedicated to Ghevra’s bravehearts, flying officer Sajjan Singh Rana and pilot Jagmahendra Singh Rana. Right at the corner of the entrance, there is a 40 ft-tall tricolour and Pradeep proudly says, “My son plays for this flag.”

In the one-and-a-half km journey from the entrance to the Rana household, Pradeep had to stop his Scooty at least a dozen times to greet well-wishers of his son. The elders, Pradeep’s friends or the kids playing in the dusty lanes have discovered a new hero in Harshit. A 13-year-old Atul, who was putting his kitbag in his father’s car, shouted at Pradeep: “Harshit bhaiyya ko bolna Perth mey swaad aa gaya (Tell Harshit, he was exceptional in Perth).” The way Pradeep is addressed has changed, too. He is now “Harshit’s father”.

The entrance gate of Ghevra village, which was built by Harshit’s father in 2023 (photo credit: Pratyush Raj )

At his house, his wife Gita opens the door and screams in joy: “Ukhaad di gilli (He has got his first wicket). Harshit had bagged his first wicket against the Prime Minister’s XI. By the time Pradeep settled down on the big sofa in his living room, Gita stepped out dancing “Ek aur wicket (one more wicket).” A few moments later, she shouted again, “Teesri bhi (third wicket as well).” Harshit ended with one more. “Aaj toh kamal hi kar diya chor ne (He has bowled exceptionally well today),” says Gita. She is upset that his son was taken out from the attack for he would have picked five. Pradeep consoles her: “Arey abhi chaar match baaki hai (There are still four matches to go).”

Pradeep, though, mutters, referring to his first four overs that leaked 34 runs: “Engine garam hone mey time lag gaya (It took him time to get going).”

*****

A doting mother, Gita shows a photograph of Harshit, when he was two years old. “Ye mera bachcha, isne humara sapna pura kiya India khel kar (My child has fulfilled our dream),” she says, wiping her tears.

Harshit’s parents Pradeep and Gita (photo credit: Pratyush Raj )

Then shifting her gaze to Pradeep, she describes him as a “haanikarak baapu”, a reference from the Aamir Khan-starrer Dangal, the story of a taskmaster father moulding his daughters to champions. “He was living his dream through my son. He was a taskmaster. Harshit used to cry every night. I tried to stop him so many times that it was not the right way to treat a kid. He used to say, ‘It is not easy to become a sportsperson. He is the one who told me that he wants to play cricket. It is sweat and blood and if he wants to quit, he can’. But Harshit never gave up,” she says.

Pradeep started training Harshit when he was 10. For the next eight years, they would leave home at 5 am and return by 9 pm. “There is a drain nearby and on the bank of it, Harshit used to run,” Pradeep recollects.

He breaks down the training. “After an hour of running, I would take him to a ground, which was closer to the house. He would bowl 120 balls on the trot. I would drop him to his school, Ganga International. In the afternoon, I used to drive him to Rohtak Road Cricket Academy in Ramjas Sports Complex in West Patel Nagar, where he was training under Shravan Kumar. At 6.30 pm, when he was done with the training, he used to run five to seven laps on the ground. By 7.30 pm, we used to leave the ground,” he says.

*****

Gita brings out a few medical reports of Harshit. She then recollects an incident when they took a 15-year-old to a hakim near the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium. “We were taking him everywhere. He told my husband, ‘Your son can never become an athlete’. Harshit’s father fumed in anger,” she adds.

Pradeep narrates Harshit’s ordeal, “It began with a pain in his joints in the lower back to the knee in 2016. We took him to the Sports Injury Centre in Safdarjung. They told me to not train him. One day after returning home from the academy, he collapsed on the stairs. For two days, he couldn’t move his legs or go to the loo on his own. He would say ‘Papa, yeh zindagi bhi koi zindagi hai. Isse acha hota ki main mar jaata (What kind of life is this? It is better to die than live like this).” He adds,“There is an ayurveda hospital in Khera Dabar, Najafgarh. I took him there. He was admitted for 20 days. A couple of weeks later, the pain recurred and he spent another week at the hospital.”

In a year, he not only regained his fitness but also played for Delhi U-19 the next year and was picked for Ranji Trophy camp in 2019. “From the time I saw him bowling at Kotla nets, I told Awana (Parvinder) that he can easily play 70-80 Tests for India,” says Narinder Negi, who was Delhi U-19’s coach back then.

But in 2020, Harshit suffered a stress fracture in his lower back. “It was just before Covid. During the lockdown, he was doing gym sessions at home and it kind of escalated his injury. In September 2020, we went to Dr Saif in Gurugram. After the MRI, he told us Harshit has broken his back. In the MRI, one can clearly see it. He was bedridden for six months,” says Pradeep.

India’s Harshit Rana appeals unsuccessfully for the wicket of Australia’s Nathan McSweeney during the day one of the second cricket test match between Australia and India at the Adelaide Oval in Adelaide, Australia. (AP)

The tryst with injuries recurred. A hamstring injury saw him miss the entire 2023-24 Ranji Trophy season. It was a wake-up call to get as fit as possible. From November 2023 to the start of the IPL 2024 in March, he shed 17 kg. The rest is well-chronicled.

*****

After the IPL final, Pradeep met KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan, who told him “Ladka jawan ho gaya hai Ranaji, ab meri tarah flying kisses de raha hai (your boy has become a man now, he is giving flying kisses like me).” He was referring to Harshit’s signature wicket-taking celebration. A few days before that Shah Rukh had promised Harshit that they would celebrate together after winning the IPL trophy.

“After I got banned for one match, I was very sad and then Shah Rukh sir came to me and said ‘don’t take any unnecessary tension, we will celebrate the IPL with a flying kiss’. He promised me and made sure that we did that with the trophy and our team,” Harshit had said.

KKR team owner Shah Rukh Khan and Harshit Rana. (Screengrab)

Coach Gautam Gambhir, though, immediately put this win in perspective. “Gambhir told him, ‘Look Harshit, you have done well, congratulations. Enjoy this, but I want to tell you one thing, the joy you will get while representing your country will be bigger than this. The joy of representing 140 crore people is out of this world. So double up your training’,” says Pradeep.

He did, and in Perth he blew a few more flying kisses. The wicket that is still playing in Pradeep’s mind is the pearler that dismissed the counterpunching Travis Head in the first innings. The ball pitched on the middle and off-stump before moving a shade to hit the top of Head’s off-stump. “Probably the best ball he has bowled his whole life,” says Pradeep, with a beaming smile.

The spell reminded the coach of Ishant’s bowling at WACA in 2008. “It took me to 2008, when Ishant bowled that exceptional spell at WACA (the old stadium in Perth). Ishant went on to play 105 Tests. I want Harshit to achieve that feat as well,” says Kumar.

Meanwhile, the Ranas are busy preparing for their first overseas trip. “We will go to Melbourne on December 20. We wanted to go for the Adelaide Test but since there was no direct flight, Harshit told us to come for the Melbourne Test,” he says.

There, on the grandest stage, the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, in front of his parents, will Harshit keep his date with the 150-kph scorcher?

FAST LANE

India’s prolonged hunt for out-and-out quick bowlers has been somewhat fulfilled over the last decade. Several pacers have burst through the ranks and breached the 150-kph mark.

A look at India’s Club 150