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IndiaBowler
T Natarajan
- Age
- 35y 222d
- Bats
- Left-hand
- Bowls
- Left-arm fast
- From
- Salem
- Age
- 35y 222d
- Bats
- Left-hand
- Bowls
- Left-arm fast
- From
- Salem
Natarajan is a left-arm fast bowler from Salem. His introduction to the game came through tennis-ball cricket, which is where he first picked up the fundamentals of his craft. By his own path, he came close to a life as a coolie before cricket opened a very different door for him.
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The tennis-ball game shaped his bowling. In that format he relied on yorkers, and once he moved on to the seasoned leather ball he switched to cutters as a main weapon, without losing his ability to trouble batsmen. His talent was first noticed by A Jayaprakash, a division-level cricketer, and Natarajan later relocated to Chennai to pursue the sport more seriously.
Strong displays in the domestic season and in the inaugural edition of the TNPL put him in the spotlight. Some observers likened him to Bangladesh's Mustafizur Rahman, and Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) bought him for 3 crores ahead of IPL 2017. His first IPL campaign was modest: he appeared in 6 matches and claimed 2 wickets. For a bowler still so raw, that season served as a valuable learning experience rather than a breakthrough.
Setbacks followed. An elbow injury kept him out of the 2017-18 Ranji season. Even so, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) signed him for 40 lakhs at the 2018 IPL auction. With a squad full of seasoned players vying for the same spot, though, he did not get a game and sat on the bench for the whole of that season.
