Thangarasu Natarajan’s rise to stardom and the 3 crores deal

Every IPL auction has sprung surprises. It was no different this time too when many household names went unsold and some of the unheard names were bought for big money. Let’s put it in black and white, we envied the rise of a seamer from Bangladesh in Mustafizur Rehman when we first saw him. By the looks of things, the same skill-sets would be the reason why 25-year old Thangarasu Natarajan was bought for a whopping Rs 3 crore, 30 times his base price of Rs 10 lakhs.

Son of a daily wager father and a mother who ran a small snacks shop, T Natarajan hadn’t played with proper cricket ball until he was 20. It was the eagle-eyes of a well-wisher, A. Jayaprakash, from his village which encouraged Natarajan to dream big and try harder. He moved to Chennai in 2010-11 and started off with fourth division league cricket.

He slowly rose among the ranks and made quite a reputation for his accuracy and ability to bowl toe-crushing yorkers at will. He went on to play for Jolly Rovers club, which once had Ravichandran Ashwin and Murali Vijay in their colours. He went on to represent Tamil Nadu in 2015-16 and made his dream debut in the colossal Eden Gardens against West Bengal. However, he was shocked to be reported for suspected and had to correct his action.

Sunil Subramaniam, a former TN spinner, and Ashwin’s coach helped Natarajan in the process. With an improved run-up and loading, Natarajan became more lethal after remodelling his action. Live coverage of TNPL and his sensational bowling in the death overs, reminded of Mustafizur and he rightly earned the nickname of Mustafizur of Tamil Nadu.

Also read- Sachin or Virat; Interesting reactions from Aussie camp

The ability to bowl yorkers at will at a good pace and contain the batsmen with his mix of deliveries made the IPL scouts notice this lanky pacer. Natarajan claimed that playing tennis ball cricket helped him with his accuracy, “I played a lot of tennis ball cricket and you had to bowl a lot of yorkers to contain the batsmen,” he said.

“I am not thinking of the money right now. I never imagined getting so much money. I don’t even know how many zeroes are there in three crores,” Natarajan, 25, who is just nine first-class matches and five T20 matches old, chuckled during a chat with Hindustan Times. “I am just thrilled to be part of the IPL, which will help me develop my bowling.”

The prodigy who turned millionaire overnight knows what he wanted with his money. “My first priority is to build a decent house. My sisters want to study further, one wants to do engineering and other wants to be a Chartered Accountant. This money will come in handy,” said Natarajan.

This is the reason why @lionsdenkxip spent 3cr on Natarajan !! @IPL @realpreityzinta @Cricketracker pic.twitter.com/KfD4SbCrZJ

— Nibraz Ramzan ?™ (@nibrazramzan) February 21, 2017