Not playing a single game in the previous two editions of the Indian Premier League, Thangarasu Natarajan started with the Playing XI of Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2020 and impressed everyone with his bowling.
He impressed everyone with his yorkers and control in his bowling when was he noticed in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL). Natarajan was bought by Kings XI Punjab for INR 3 Crores for the 2017 season of the IPL.
Playing just six matches in that season, Natarajan failed to impress his owners and was left out of the next season with poor returns, as he took just two wickets and had an economy of over 9.
Coming from a rural not so well-off Tamil Nadu family, this amount helped him to buy a place for his family, paying off the debts and securing his siblings’ future, but he had an uncertain one, as far as IPL was concerned.
However, in the 2018 mega auction, Natarajan was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad at his base price. But didn’t play a single game for them in the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
This year, however, he was one of the starters in the SRH line-up and has been the most impressive pacer of the team in three games, till now. And, his best till now, came in the third game against the Delhi Capitals (DC) on Tuesday.
Defending 163 against the batting line-up of DC, Sunrisers had a huge challenge at hand. Natarajan bowled two overs in the powerplay, giving away just 12 runs in those.
He came back in the 14th over of the DC innings and started showing his capabilities from ball one. He started peppering the duo of Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer with one yorker after another and didn’t let them get away when they needed 85 runs off the last 7 overs.
The first one, pin-point yorker outside off-stump, next was a full toss, the third one, again a yorker at the base of the stumps, followed by a low full-toss, and a wide bouncer, Natarajan came back with two consecutive yorkers again for the last two balls of the over.
This was just the trailer. Coming back for his last over in the 18th of the innings, Natarajan nailed three more yorkers in that over before getting rid of Marcus Stoinis, trapping him in front of the wickets on full delivery.
Sunrisers, who have always been a bowling heavy team, displayed one of the best yorker executions of this season when the balls are getting deposited into the stands more often than not in the slog overs.
After Washington Sundar, who bowled a magnificent spell for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on Monday, Natarajan, another product of TNPL, has impressed everyone playing at a big stage such as IPL, on consecutive days.
The netizens, experts, cricketers, journalists didn’t hold themselves back in applauding that effort from T Natarajan. Here are some of the reactions:
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