Years later, Barinder Sran could recall the biggest moment of his IPL career with a glee: The Virat Kohi wicket in the 2016 final in front of a loud Chinnaswamy Stadium crowd.
“Unko chakma dene ke liye slower ball dali thi! (I bowled a slower ball to deceive him!),” he recounts, laughing.
But in that precise moment, the Sunrisers Hyderabad bowler could feel his nerves fray, his heart pound. His first two overs had cost 29 runs. Kohli smoked his second ball of the third over for a gorgeous six over extra cover. Royal Challengers Bengaluru were strolling at 140 for 1 in 13 overs, chasing 208. The knock was supposed to be the pinnacle of Kohli’s most prolific season (973 runs).
Then, the left-arm seamer gathered his wits. A plan took birth. “We knew that Virat would step out and hit if you keep mid-off up. He stepped out to the first ball of the third over and hit over cover. That is what we planned,” Sran tells The Indian Express.
He sent the fielder back for the next few balls. But for the fifth, he tweaked the plan and laid the ruse. The fielder was recalled to mid- off “to see if he would play the same shot yet again.”
Kohli stepped out. Sran shortened the length. Kohli stopped and tried to cut but was a fraction early and chopped the ball onto the leg-stump. “Millisecond ka gap hi hota hain, and that millisecond got his wicket,” he recollects.
The wicket triggered a collapse. RCB eventually fell short by eight runs as SRH pulled off an unlikely heist. Sran did not grab another wicket. His contribution was forgotten. But the moment will live forever in him. A one-night action hero. The night would keep him warm for years.
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SRH won their only IPL title thus far by beating a red-hot RCB in the 2016 final. (Sportzpics)
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In 2007, Sran, then a young boxing aspirant from Panniwala Morika village near Sirsa in Haryana, shifted to Bhiwani to realise his dreams. His father, a farmer, had spent every penny of his humble earnings to nourish his son’s dreams. The next year, Bhiwani soared into national consciousness, when local boy Vijender Singh won bronze at the 2008 Olympics.
Sran’s idol was Vijender, but fate takes strange routes. In 2009, he saw a newspaper advertisement about a fast bowling trials in Mohali. He attended and won it.
Two years later, he was playing for Punjab, three years on he had a seven-figure IPL contract; he subsequently featured in two T20Is and six ODIs.
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Sran played six ODIs and two T20Is. (PTI Photo)
Every IPL episode, the Sran storyline recurs. A cricketer bursts forth from a nondescript background, and creates a moment of magic. Like Rajasthan Royals’ medium pacer Ashok Sharma, the son of a farmer in Rampura, a village near Jaipur. Or Punjab Kings’ Vishal Nishad, who borrowed money to attend trials and toiled in local leagues; or Chennai Super Kings batsman Prashant Veer, son of a schoolteacher.
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“Magician bowler,” Sran keeps raving about his teammate Bhuvneshwar Kumar, the chief architect of SRH’s 2016 triumph with 23 wickets. He spent only two seasons at the franchise but got the lessons of a lifetime. Just by observing Bhuvneshwar, he learned. “He always focuses on his basics. He doesn’t go for anything extra,” recalls Sran, still in awe.
Whenever he was confused or worried, he would turn to Bhuvneshwar. “If I had any problem during the game, I went to Bhuvi bhai. I had discussed a lot with Bhuvi bhai. I used to tell him I have this plan for this batter, and if he did not agree with it, we discussed it then and there and tried to alter it. He was always ready to help. Even during the game when I was not understanding where to bowl to a batter or what type of bowling I should do in a particular over, he cleared my mind and gave me clarity.”
Bhuvneshwar’s knack to size up a batsman’s weakness wowed Sran. “If a batsman has a weakness against the inswinger, he would have already learnt that. The most important thing was knowing when to use it; he knew exactly when.
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“Whether to set up a batsman, go for the wicket ball immediately or bowl it after a few deliveries, he knows exactly when to do,” Sran says.
It’s the global cricket village where Zaheer Khan learned the knuckle ball from Charl Langeveldt, where Dwayne Bravo helped Lungi Ngidi chisel the cutters. A youngster somewhere would already be chewing the ears of Rashid Khan or Jasprit Bumrah or Sunil Narine.
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The league toughens and polishes youngsters, prepares them for international rigours, and teaches them to stand on their feet. Coach Tom Moody and captain David Warner would do likewise for Sran. (Sportzpics)
The league is a crash course of personality-building for youngsters. It toughens and polishes them, prepares them for international rigours, and teaches them to stand on their feet. Coach Tom Moody and captain David Warner would do likewise for Sran.
“If you have a plan, they don’t stop you. You need this field, that field. If you have a slower ball, what field do you need? If you have worked that out and it is visible on the ground when the players do it, they don’t interfere,” he says.
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“They let the players do it, and all the players showed their potential,” says Sran, who snared 14 wickets from as many games and played an important role in SRH’s title run.
His career subsequently withered as injuries crept up. He featured in only nine more IPL games spread across three seasons. He played his last domestic game in 2021 when he was only 28. But he nurses no regrets.
“Even though my career was brief, the memories created will be forever cherished,” he wrote in his retirement post. He has the Kohli-wicket moment to keep him warm and happy, the night he gave the legend “chakma” and broke Bengaluru’s heart.
