IPL 2017: Basil Thampi, Nitish Rana among many young Indian players making waves

Mumbai Indians cricketer Nitish Rana raises his bat and helmet as he celebrates after scoring a half century against Gujarat Lions aon April 16, 2017. Punit Paranjpe / AFP

One of the stated aims of the creators of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was to put in place a conveyor belt for Indian talent to flourish on the big stage.

That was behind the decision to restrict the number of foreign players in each XI to just four. In the early seasons, that rule became a bit of an eyesore. There simply were not 56 Indian players of the requisite quality.

We will not go down the naming-and-shaming road, but in the initial stages, more than a few Indian players struggled to cope with the quantum leap from domestic cricket to IPL.

Each team tended to have one or two “fillers”, batsmen who would struggle to time the ball off the square, and bowlers who were targeted mercilessly by the opposition. It looked all the more jarring with some of the game’s heroes watching on from the bench.

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Things are very different now. There are almost no Indian weak links to speak of, and some of the lesser-known names from the domestic circuit have taken the opening two weeks of the tournament by storm.

One of those to catch the eye has been Kerala’s Basil Thampi, whose team, Gujarat Lions, are stuck at the bottom of the table.

Thampi announced himself to the IPL audience with a slower-ball bouncer that thudded into Steve Smith’s rib cage and left him on the ground, writhing in agony. Smith was on 37 off just 21 balls at the time, and he added just six more off the next seven balls he faced, in a match that Gujarat went on to win.

Thampi, who bowled in the India nets before the Pune Test against Australia, is genuinely fast, but the back-of-the-hand slower bouncer and his ability to bowl yorkers almost at will have garnered plenty of attention in an otherwise poor bowling side.

Against Mumbai Indians, those searing yorkers kept Rohit Sharma and Kieron Pollard quiet, and on the Lions’ home turf in Rajkot, he was the one saving grace as Royal Challengers Bangalore walloped them in a basement slugfest.

On a day when Chris Gayle roused himself to storm past 10,000 Twenty20 runs, every other bowler copped a fearful hammering, with Ravindra Jadeja — the local hero — going for an eye-watering 57 in his four overs.

Thampi conceded just 31 in his spell and dismissed Gayle with what the old-timers call a sandshoe crusher.

And Thampi has not been the only relative unknown to leave his imprint on the proceedings.

Nitish Rana is also 23, and he hails from Delhi. He has been at the heart of the high-flying Mumbai side, with scores of 34, 50, 45, 11 and 53. He has combined some big hits with classical stroke play, and impressed the connoisseurs with his calmness at the crease.

Manan Vohra, another 23-year-old player, has smashed 174 runs from just 105 balls for Kings XI Punjab, including a marvellous 50-ball 95 (out of 154) in a narrow defeat to Sunrisers Hyderabad.

Guided by Virender Sehwag, who performs the functions of both mentor and coach for the team, Vohra needs to show that such innings can be the norm, rather than the classy but frustrating cameos that have hampered his progress.

A relatively older face has also been in the headlines.

For most, Krunal Pandya, 26, is Hardik’s older brother. But the senior sibling is a proper Twenty20 cricketer in his own right, as he showed by dismissing AB de Villiers for a third time in the IPL.

His left-arm spin is relentlessly accurate, and like his brother, he can wield the long handle most effectively.

Overseas players of the quality of Kane Williamson and Kagiso Rabada are stuck on the bench, but it is no longer the case that the Indians who take their places are make-up-the-numbers selections.

A decade into the IPL, the strength in depth it has helped bring about is especially impressive.

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