Bengal pacer finally gets his big break as Delhi Capitals rope him in for 5.5 crore
KOLKATA: Life has come full circle for 29-year-old Bengal pacer Mukesh Kumar, who was bought by Delhi Capitals for Rs 5. 5 cr at the IPL auction on Friday. The son of a migrant taxi driver from Gopalganj district of Bihar, Mukesh came to Kolkata with father Kashinath Singh in search of a career after failing to clear the CRPF exams thrice after his graduation.
Although his father wanted his only son, the youngest of a family of five children, to get a government job, his love for the game pushed Mukesh to appear for the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) trials under their ambitious ‘Vision 2020' project in 2014.
However, Mukesh could not impress Pakistan great Waqar Younis during the trial. Luckily, Bengal bowling coach Ranadeb Bose thought otherwise. "He did not even have a pair of cricket shoes then and I had to arrange his spikes," Bose had stated. But very few could have imagined that this malnourished kid would grow up to make his mark for the India ‘A' side. It was Bose who convinced Sourav Ganguly to arrange a room for Mukesh at the Eden Gardens stadium complex. However, the next big task was to convince the former India skipper to hand Mukesh a Ranji debut against a Virender Sehwag-captained Haryana in Lahli in 2015.
"Dadi (Sourav) was astounded that I wanted Mukesh in the Ranji Trophy squad then," Bose stated. But there was no looking back after he clean bowled Sehwag and ended up capturing four wickets in the first innings.
Mukesh suffered a big jolt when he lost his father due to a brain hemorrhage in Dec 2018. But he regrouped and improved tremendously under Bose and Bengal coach Arun Lal. Mukesh is a bowler who hits the deck and can get the ball to move both ways. He was called up by Royal Challengers Bangalore as a net bowler last year but missed out due to Covid-19.
This time, everything seems to have fallen in place, with the bowler, who had a base price of Rs 20 lakh, emerging a winner after a long bidding war between Delhi Capitals, his new IPL team, and Punjab Kings.
