Indian-origin Jason Sangha becomes NSW’s youngest cricketer

NEW DELHI: On Thursday, in the realm of Australian domestic cricket, a 16-year-old batsman of Indian origin, Jason Sangha, became the youngest player to ever be contracted by the country’s most decorated team, New South Wales. The teenager has come up the ranks of NSW cricket rapidly, having scored heavily in the Under-19 National Championships and then scoring a hundred on debut for the Australian U-19 team against Pakistan in January this year.

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Also in the NSW list of fully contracted players for the 2016-17 season is an 18-year-old spinner by the name of Arjun Nair. Interestingly, Nair honed his brand of spin by watching clips of India off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and West Indian Sunil Narine on YouTube.
News of Sangha’s breakthrough rookie contract comes just a couple of days ago after it was announced that another Indian-origin sportsman, wrestler Vinod Kumar Dahiya, will represent Australia at the 2016 Rio Olympics after he won silver at the African/Oceania Olympic qualifiers in Antigua. Dahiya, 31, hails from the village of Khanda in Haryana and only became an Australian citizen last year having migrated to the country in 2010. Now settled in Victoria, Dahiya has won six national championships apart from other medals at the Australia Cup and Canberra Cup.

Other notable sportspersons of Indian origin who have made names for themselves overseas include badminton player Rajiv Ouseph, who is currently England’s top ranked shuttler and has two Commonwealth Games golds and an Asian Games bronze to his name; Brandon Chillar, whose father is Indian and mother Italian, played in the NFL and later became a heavy investor in the Elite Football League of India; Manny Malhotra, who plays ice hockey in the NHL; Sim Bhullar, the NBA’s first Indian-origin basketball player; footballer Luciano Narsingh, 25, who plays professionally in the Netherlands and who in 2015 was part of the PSV Eindhoven team that beat Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League; and gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj – born to an Indian father and Russian mother – who at the 2004 Olympics, won silver.

Back to cricket, last year Gurinder Sandhu, the NSW fast bowler with roots in Punjab, became the first cricketer of Indian to play for Australia. Sangha and Nair are definitely two promising talents to watch, and there you can expect many in India following their progress closely.