JAIPUR: The wait has lasted more than a decade, but for the Rajasthan cricket fraternity, the drought finally ended on a historic Saturday morning in New Chandigarh. Not since Pankaj Singh stepped out for maiden India, no cricketer from the state has bagged the coveted Test cap.
After a 12-year hiatus, the desert state is back in the Test arena, thanks to the young left-arm spinner from Sriganganagar, Manav Suthar.With this monumental achievement, 23-year-old Manav enters the elite club, becoming only the fifth cricketer from the state – after the legendary Salim Durrani, Hanumant Singh, Parthasarthy Sharma and Pankaj Singh – to represent the state in Test cricket.
Long before the national selectors took notice, the foundation for this historic moment had been laid in the local trenches. Vineet Saxena, former Rajasthan player and head coach of the men’s senior team in the 2022-23 season, vividly remembers the quiet morning during a Ranji Trophy match that year when he got his first glimpse of Manav during a competitive match.“He was the guy who used to get players out on defense and at slips,” recalls Saxena.
For an experienced master like him, a wicket on a scorecard can sometimes be deceiving, but the technical purity of a dismissal reveals the true ceiling of a bowler. Saxena points out that what truly makes Manav an exceptional left-arm spinner is his ability to outsmart batsmen, and hit them when they are trying to protect their stumps.
“So usually, when we look at a bowler, the numbers don’t really indicate the way they pick wickets. But if the bowler is getting the batsman out in his defence, it means the bowler has really good quality,” the former State coach added.It was not only his tactical brilliance that caught the eye, but also his amazing physical attributes in the bowling game. Southar possessed an innate ability to manipulate the ball in the air, giving it a heavy adjustment that became a nightmare for domestic batsmen.“The second thing I noticed is how fast the ball is spinning, which is amazing,” says Saxena. “In our colloquial language, we say the ball spins, drifts and bites the surface. So it’s about those spins he can impart to the ball. That’s something special about him.”This special quality exploded into reality during Manin’s second Ranji Trophy season in 2022-23. The youngster tore up the opposition lineups, taking 39 wickets in just six matches at an incredible economy of 2.90, punctuated by two five-wicket hauls and a match-winning 10-wicket haul.However, what makes Suthar the quintessential modern cricketer, and why many are already looking at him as a potential successor to Ravindra Jadeja, is his tremendous all-round ability. Southar was never satisfied with being a one-dimensional specialist.“In a match that season, he took five wickets against Pondicherry and narrowly missed out on scoring a century. So that would have been a very big achievement,” notes Saxena. “He can develop into a good all-rounder.
In multiplication also, what I noticed at that time was that he was very keen to learn. So he had that mentality and attitude.”Naturally, any young traditional left-arm spinner who can bat and rack up huge home runs will draw immediate comparisons with Jadeja. As Manav officially embarks on his Test journey, the hype is palpable, but Saxena urges a balanced perspective while validating the youngster’s immense talent.“Jadeja is probably one of the greatest that India has produced.
So I think as of now, it would be wrong to compare Manav with him. “It is a long way for Manav to go to achieve this,” says Saxena.Southar’s adaptability became even more evident when he translated these red-ball performances into high-stakes white-ball cricket. Saxena recalls how smoothly the bowler held up against some of the most feared and established batsmen in the country, proving himself to be a true asset in all formats.“Facing a star-studded Mumbai side in practice matches ahead of the Mushtaq Ali Trophy in Ahmedabad, he produced an outstanding performance against Shivam Dubey. Despite Dubey’s notorious dominance of left-arm spinners, he stifled the all-rounder’s scoring rate to less than he ran the ball and culminated in his dismissal. This bravery was not a one-off.”When the tournament officially began, Manav made his T20 debut as an impact player against Madhya Pradesh, tasked with containing the in-form Venkatesh Iyer.“Iyer is a good striker with the ball. In that match, he scored about 60 off 30 balls. Among that, against Manav, it was just a run with the ball, and Manav bowled about 8 to 10 balls to him. So against the batters as well, he was able to contain them. He has that skill set for T20s as well. He is an all-format player, it’s not like he can just stay in the longer format,” he added.
