Rana dedicates ‘dream’ debut: ‘This one’s for you, dad’

NewsThe fast bowler didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before his debut and started to cry after he got the India cap

Harshit Rana might only be 22 years old but he has been waiting a long time to be an international cricketer. On Instagram, with a picture of him wearing the India cap, he wrote “a dream that my father and I saw 13 years ago has come true today. This one’s for you dad.”

Rana could have made his debut in a T20I series against Bangladesh last month but he went down with viral fever. “It was very difficult for me,” Rana said after the day’s play. “But as I said, Gauti [coach Gautam Gambhir] bhaiyya would keep telling me to wait for my time and when it comes, I should do my best for the country. And I speak to my dad before every match day and he would tell me that the day God has planned for you to play, you will play. Don’t worry too much.”

When the day came, in Perth during the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, Rana was overwhelmed. “I wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep that night [before the game] and I went to sleep quite late. I didn’t listen to anything special, just followed my regular routine. I had [nervous flutters] the day before the match. [On the day] when I was giving the speech [at the cap presentation], I started to cry.

“I had seen this [Australia vs India] only on TV, waking up early and watching with my dad. So this is a huge deal for me.”

Rana was a crucial member of the KKR squad that won the IPL earlier this year. He looked like he was made for white-ball cricket with his pace variations. But India’s red-ball side saw something in him, potentially during the match simulation against India A at the WACA, where he showed a willingness to hit the deck hard and bowl sharp, accurate spells.

Rana was able to bring that form against Australia in Perth and took three wickets in the first innings to help bowl Australia out for 104 and give India a lead of 46 runs. His maiden wicket was Travis Head and it came off a beautiful delivery, angled in from around the wicket and holding its line to beat the outside edge of the bat and shave the outside edge of off stump.

“Personally, I am very happy with my performance and even happier with the way the team has performed,” Rana said. “If you talk specially about that wicket, there was a discussion in the team about how to set him up and dismiss him. The plan was to attack his stumps, and I bowled a good ball and got a wicket.

“We get extra bounce when we come here and play on these wickets but we have to make sure we don’t get carried away. If we focus on bowling those good lines and lengths, it will help us. So that was the focus, to not get carried away.”

Rana also spoke of Jasprit Bumrah’s influence on his performance: “Whether you talk about batting or bowling, when someone gives you a start like Jassi bhaiyya did yesterday, it creates an atmosphere where everyone is very charged up. Everyone starts thinking ‘if he is doing it, we will too’. So that was a big thing that they were three wickets down when I came on to bowl. And I thought that I should also get some wickets because the faster they are bowled out, the better for us.”

Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo