Indian software engineer from the US selected for CPL

Divine intervention mingled with hard work can aptly summarize Saurabh Netravalkar and his life story. From being an US-based software engineer to playing alongside the likes of Chris Gayle in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL), this fairy tale has its roots in India. Currently, the 26-year old cricketer is a part of the US national cricket team.

Netravalkar originally played for Mumbai as a pacer. He’d been teammates with KL Rahul back in the U-19 days. The two even represented the nation together in New Zealand back in 2010 during the U-19 World Cup. Later in his career, Netravalkar settled in the US as a software engineer.

Saurabh Netravalkar is living a fairy tale

The left-arm pacer left India in 2015 to pursue his studies in the United States of America. Two years later, he made a comeback into the foray of international cricket and this time around, he had to juggle his schedule between working as an engineer and playing weekend tournaments in Los Angeles and San Francisco. A few months ago, Netrvalkar was selected in the US national cricket team and subsequently, he also received a call-up for the CPL.

Speaking to Mid-day from Guyana, Netravalkar expressed his elation at the call-up and said,”I am so excited to bowl to star batsmen like Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo. I am looking forward to the challenge. All my teammates in Guyana Amazon Warriors, including captain Shoaib Malik, are very approachable and supportive. They are quite encouraging. I want to use this opportunity to learn the game from top-class cricketers.”

Talking about how it’s a struggle to maintain his fitness level for competitive cricket while he also has to spend long hours at his job at Oracle, the cricketer lent some insight into his lifestyle and said, “I am in the US national team, so I need to stay fit. After office hours (post-5.30 pm) I head to the gym. I want to make it big as a professional cricketer.”

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