Here’s the full transcript of Saurabh Netravalkar, USA pacer, full press conference ahead of their T20 World Cup clash against India.
(Reporter:)
Hi, I have a question for each of them sort of can you just State the obvious. Can you just spell out what tomorrow will mean for you personally and the family to be playing at the Wankhede in an international game finally?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
Yeah, personally feels like a full circle moment for me because I learned my cricket here. I grew up in Mumbai and Getting an opportunity to play at Wankhede, which has been my dream since childhood as well so nostalgic emotional – good to see, I’m looking forward for my family friends to be there and I’ll give my best.
(Reporter:)
Sanjay, you are one of the few Native Americans who have actually risen through the ranks and being a part of this whole occasion. What does it signify for Native Americans or the those from your side of the – and for the world American crickets scenario?
(Sanjay Krishnamurthi:)
Yeah, I think for all Americans this is a special moment for our country. To be able to come here and play cricket in one of the most iconic stadiums against one of the best teams in the world right now and I think it’s going to inspire a future generation of cricketers to come and rise through the ranks in American cricket.
(Reporter:)
Your performance in 2024 both as an individual and as a team was discussed a lot here. How do you think the journey has been since then for the team and how that experience will help?
Especially in tomorrow’s game, which is the first one for the World Cup.
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
Yeah, I think since then we’ve grown a lot in experience as a unit, with obviously three seasons of Major League Cricket. Quite a few of our guys have gotten good gigs in franchise leagues around the world. So that experience It definitely helps. We’ve been playing also the 50 over Qualifiers for 2027 World Cup and so far so good. We are top of the table. We’re doing decently so that experience has increased and hopefully it shows on the field.
(Reporter:)
Saurabh, last time you guys pulled off a stunning upset over Pakistan. Are you confident of repeating that feat again?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
Well, I wouldn’t want to talk about the results. Here, obviously 2024 was a different condition to play and it was little more bowler friendly pitches were different. Subcontinent the challenges are different. There’ll be huge crowds, more batter friendly pitches. Less margin for error – like I’m talking as a bowler. So different challenges, but we’ve prepped our best. We were a month in Sri Lanka. We had decent training facilities. So we just want to take one game at a time and play a good brand of cricket, and that’s what we’ll judge ourselves by than the results. I mean the results can go either way – T20 cricket. So yeah.
(Reporter:)
The makeup of the USA team gives them a very unique advantage because it’s very cosmopolitan in nature. When you’re coming to a venue like this, of course your experience you would want your experience to come good. Then you’re going to Colombo and someone like Shehan could chip in and if you get pitches where there’s semblance of pace and bounce Someone like Andie’s or Shadley – the South African born plays will – of course they’ll be helping in their own way. How important do you think it is to have players who have grown playing across all sorts of conditions so that you guys are accustomed to everything that is thrown your way, in a way that you are not really bothered by the conditions. How does that help USA cricket team?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
Yeah, it definitely helps to have people who have learned the sport in different parts of the globe. They’ll have their own unique inputs to the same situations and the more we play together the more we are playing together, we are learning from each other the way they prepare the way they adapt themselves. So yeah, I could say that could be our strength if – and we’ve bonded well as a team, like in the last two three years we’ve come together as a unit.
(Reporter:)
Last edition you took the wickets – most important wickets of India which was Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. This season we don’t have them but at the same time we have some batters who can really take up the game So what’s the plan against them like Ishaan, Abhishek and Suryakumar Yadav especially?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
So like I said here the focus will more be on minimizing the damage like you’re saying -there are high scoring pitches here. So every ball that we bowl to the field, as long as we bowl to the field we bowl to our matchups and maximize our chances. I think defense might be the best attack on this kind of pitches and hopefully we induce a mistake or a false shot. So that’s the best we can do as bowlers, I guess in these conditions.
(Reporter:)
Saurav, you and a few others have played domestic cricket here in India before migrating to US. Now that familiarity of those conditions as well as you said in the last couple of years you’ll have experience of playing Major League Cricket and few other Franchisee so does that give a little more confidence coming into the World Cup and especially with a lot of spotlight on India and Pakistan in the group?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
So you mean us being used to subcontinent?
(Reporter:)
Yeah, some of you all have played domestic cricket here before going So you are aware of the conditions at age group level and even Ranji as well.
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
Yeah, it definitely helps but frankly speaking it’s been a long time – like last I played in India would be 2014-2015, so things have changed drastically – the game itself has changed drastically. It’s become so much more aggressive from the batter’s perspective. So I wouldn’t compare it. Yes, the experience helps but the game is very different.
(Reporter:)
So there’s a lot of brouhaha over India and Pakistan in this region for not shaking hands and all the rest of the stuff, and there you are your team beautifully has both Indians and Pakistan origin players. So as a senior guy at any point, did you have to sort of address the issue? What to do about this? How are we going to gel together or just to keep the noise out? Did you’ll talk about this, or anything like that just to address the issue basically.
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
I mean from our perspective we are a group of people from multiple countries across the globe and what brings us together is the love of the game and we are proud to represent the USA and that’s what we focus on.
(Reporter:)
So there was never talk about these things at all?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
I don’t think so
(Reporter:)
Most of the teams find difficult when playing Varun Chakraborty or Arshdeep’s wild yorkers, how do you think you can play to both of the mystery bowler and fast bowler?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
If I get to bat our team will be in trouble, so I’ll let the batsman take that question.
(Sanjay Krishnamurthi:)
Yeah, I think major league experience has helped us , we played some of the best bowlers such as Narayan or Noor Ahmed, Rashid Khan. So I think , they’re all quality bowlers, but we know that they do miss as well And I think we back ourselves when we get the opportunity.
(Reporter:)
One question to each one of you – Saurabh how have you in specific prepared against the top-order Indian batters who went on song seem to be unstoppable also, if you can talk about the dew conditions which we can expect in this tournament and Sanjay if you can talk about the absence of Aaron Jones in that batting lineup. Obviously an experienced batter who is not around. How much does it affect your batting plans heading into this tournament?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
So from a bowling perspective on flatter pitches, obviously the main thing is to be proactive and anticipate what the batter is trying to do. So it will be more of a mental game than a skill based game. Obviously the skills you have to execute, but there is some kind of a chess game going on there. So we’ll try to do our analysis, see the patterns of how batters score their runs and try to bowl the best ball that gives us the best chance to minimize the damage or induce a false shot, like I said and give our batters the best chance of scoring the total or if our batters have scored the total we’ll try our best to defend it. Yeah.
(Sanjay Krishnamurthi:)
Yeah, Aaron’s obviously a senior player in this team and he performed very well last World Cup but we have a whole batting lineup full of batters with quite a bit of experience and over the last two years in franchise cricket, most of us have done quite well. So I think – yeah we’re going to miss him, but at the same time, I think our batting lineup is still well equipped to fill up that gap.
(Reporter:)
Sanjay my question is to you. You are pretty young and with the USA consistently now playing ICC tournaments, how is it motivating the younger kids the local Americans to take up cricket? It is a new sport in the country I understand but how it is motivating the younger generation to pick up cricket and make it as a profession for their future.
(Sanjay Krishnamurthi:)
Yeah, I think once Major League started we saw a lot of kids, see a future career possibility in cricket and then last World Cup really I was doing some part-time coaching at an academy and I saw quite a few new parents putting their kids into cricket and I see just in general there’s a lot of more kids thinking about cricket as more than just a hobby. It’s now something that could become a profession. So it’s really exciting to see how this can grow in the next five to ten years.
(Reporter:)
Yeah, so just a follow-up question from that. Growing up in America You must have seen there’s another hand-eye coordination support called baseball, which is very big in the state So do you think the Americans can sort of draw similarities and maybe the sport cricket can also grow on them?
(Sanjay Krishnamurthi:)
Absolutely. Actually when I first went to the US I worked with the baseball coach to work on power hitting because that’s something that I think they’re miles ahead of cricket in because power hitting is a pretty recent addition to cricket, it’s usually high elbow technical is how you’re taught. So I think there’s a lot that you can learn from baseball as well as their throwing technique is very, very good. So I think in the US we have the best Baseball coaches and I think we can really make use of that and that can help us. Yeah
(Reporter:)
Saurabh USA cricket team has seen a bunch of coaches over the period of time, In fact, Pugudu has been on and off with the team. What does he bring to this team?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
He’s been very special to the team for me personally as well because I made my debut under him in 2018 and 2019 we got ODI status and now he’s back again a nostalgic moment for us. What he brings specifically to the table is – he eats breathes and lives cricket and he likes to have no stone unturned. He makes sure he pushes us to the best in all aspects – skills, fitness Mental preparation and yeah, it’s tough but it’s what we need to do to get to the next level so I’m happy that he’s here with us.
(Reporter:)
Surya Kumar was here some time back and he was saying that since The Indian team doesn’t play a lot of associate teams apart from World Cups it was almost like a disadvantage because of the unknown factor in terms of preparation – How do you all see it? Because you must be playing India and Pakistan again after one and a half years. So, is it a disadvantage or an advantage that you can spring a surprise actually?
(Saurabh Netravalkar:) Novelty factor – yeah, I guess it would be true because they’ll have less data on us, but obviously they are far more skillful and experienced and they’re one of the best teams in the world. So that’s a challenge for us to then step up and see what best we can do – but the format itself has some kind of a luck factor, so if the right guys build the right partnership or we have the few key moments go for us, then we can give a good fight I guess – but yeah, we’ll give our best, we’ll see.
(Sanjay Krishnamurthi:)
Okay, yeah to answer that question, I think that yes, we’re probably more unknown to them. but also there’s quite a bit of videos going around. So I think they would have done their homework as we’ve done our homework as well on them and I think it’s going to be an even contest in that point of view, obviously, like you said they play a lot more than us and yeah, it’s their home conditions as well, but we’re going to give it our best
(Reporter:)
Just one follow-up is everyone available for selection
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
I think so -as for now, we’ll see how is going on. Yeah, the physio is evaluating everybody.
(Reporter:)
Just as a parting note, I really wanted to know how many weeks of leaves have you got sanctioned for the tournament
(Saurabh Netravalkar:)
So far it’s for the league stages, then we’ll see how we go.