Free from niggles and injuries, Punjab bowler Barinder Sran — who represented India in six ODI and two T20 games — is set to press the reset button through the Indian Premier League (IPL), to resurrect his international career.
Gifted with a classical follow through, that looked like a mirror image of Brett Lee, the 25-year-old had a fiery ODI debut against Australia in Perth in 2016. He finished with figures of 3/56. A few months later, on his T20 debut against Zimbabwe in Harare, he claimed a dominating 4/10, before a shoulder injury and a troublesome right knee paused his progress for six months. The left-arm pacer is ready to breathe fire once more for Kings XI Punjab, which bought him for Rs 2.20 crore (from a base price of Rs 50 lakh) at the auction last weekend.
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Talking to Sportstar on Tuesday, he said, “I am satisfied with the auction. If we play in Mohali, it will be an added advantage as it has been my home ground. I was fit before the Ranji Trophy and I played two or three games. But I found my rhythm from Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy.”
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The lanky pacer claimed eight wickets in four games, which includes a 3/22 and a 3/19 against Rajasthan and Haryana respectively. During the lull, Sran kept searching for avenues to stage a comeback. “The target was to be fit and bowl with the same rhythm where I left. There had been a gap of one-and-a-half years since I last played for India. I needed matches to be sure of my abilities and prove my fitness. Now that I am performing, I am confident of a good show in the IPL. It can help me bounce back,” he added.
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India has a set bowling attack with an equally stronger bench. But Sran is banking on the left-arm factor. “My advantage is that I am a lefty; of course, I need to perform too,” he reasoned.
Sran is keen to execute the deliveries he sharpened at the nets, especially, “the back of the hand slower delivery and the yorkers”.
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