Wolves never perform in a circus: Navdeep Saini on his tattoo after dream T20I debut in Florida

Navdeep Saini got his maiden international cap in India’s first T20I versus the Windies at the Lauderhill, Florida. In his very first over, Nicholas Pooran clobbered him down the track for a humungous over-boundary. In the same over, he picked up Pooran, who tried to put pressure on Saini. To Saini’s delight, he rattled Shimron Hetmyer’s woodwork in the very next delivery.

Thereafter, he came back to bowl a wicket-maiden in the last over of the Windies innings. The speedster nipped out Kieron Pollard and restricted the opposition to 95. He finished with decent figures of 4-1-17-3 and was adjudged the Player of the Match for his show and rightly so.

Coming to his personal self, the Delhi fast bowler has a wolf tattoo on his left forearm. After the marvellous performance, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who also played the opening T20I, had an interview with him. Saini talked about the reasons behind donning the stylish tattoo on his arm.

Navdeep Saini makes the revelations

“The story behind the wolf tattoo is that I and my brother have been watching wolf-movies ever since childhood. Another reason is that a wolf never performs in a circus,” Saini was quoted as saying during the interaction with the experienced pacer.

Talking about the spell, Saini was over the moon with how he turned up on debut. He has been a consistent performer for Delhi in domestic cricket and has got constant backing from Gautam Gambhir, the former Indian cricketer. In fact, in his very first over, he was on a hat-trick, and like everybody else, he went for glory. But Pollard left alone the delivery outside the off stump.

“I was very happy with my debut. It was unbelievable to get the cap. When I got the first wicket, it eased off the pressure. Then, when I took the second wicket, I almost felt like it was the day. I’ve seen many taking hat-tricks in such situation and I was just aiming at that,” he added.

Last year, Saini was a part of the Test squad for the one-off match against Afghanistan in Bangalore. However, he didn’t get a chance. His performances for the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) under Virat Kohli’s leadership caught the eyes of the selectors. Such was his show that he was also in contention for a berth in the 2019 World Cup.

MUST WATCH: Of dream debut and tattoos, Navdeep unplugged with @BhuviOfficial

He picked up the Man of the Match prize in his maiden game for #TeamIndia & the speedster recaps the memorable day. – by @28anand

Full video here ????️https://t.co/uRONW22wv9 pic.twitter.com/w7FrUzXuRd

— BCCI (@BCCI) August 4, 2019