Indian-origin Australian cricketer – Tanveer Sangha makes first-class debut for NSW Blues

By Ayush

Tanveer Sangha, a 19-year-old Australian cricketer of Indian origin, was finally given the NSW Blues cap #756 to make his first-class debut in the Sheffield Shield match against Victoria at Drummoyne Oval from 27^th – 30^th October.  Sangha, who made his Big Bash League debut last year and had an outstanding outing for the Sydney Thunder, claimed 3 wickets on Day 1 of his Sheffield Shield debut.

While, it was not a favourable result for the NSW Blues as the Victorian team won by 204 runs at the end of Day 4, the teen leg-spinner had an impressive debut.

Having finally made his debut, Sangha was over the moon. Speaking to Indus Age he said, “I am really grateful that I have got this opportunity and I have been able to show that I belong at this level.”

Talking about his early days as a cricketer he mentioned that he was not always a leg-spinner and only started bowling leg-spin when he was about 12-13 years old and was just getting serious about cricket. “I would bowl more and started getting better with my skills and then I started getting picked in the state squads,” he added. Sangha’s first ever U16 match came against Pakistan U16s at Melbourne where he said the Pakistani-Australian cricketer, Fawad Ahmed, had come down to see him. “After the game Fawad Ahmad and I had a chat and a small training session and progressed from there…improving more…more experience…more game time and from there I started making it into U17s, U19s…U19 World Cup…Sydney Thunder and so on,” said Sangha.

Reflecting on his first ever four-day match he said that the match provided him with a lot of match experience, learnings and key moments. “It showed me a lot about playing long-day cricket which is very unlike white ball cricket where the batters are always coming at you. I reckon I will just reassess and reanalyse and look what can be done better for the next game.” Sangha further added that in  team meetings they would definitely look back on some things that they could have worked on a bit more or switched things and gone the other way, “We just need to work on a couple of things and we can switch around and get back to winning again very easily,” he said. “It’s a very proud moment for my family. I know my parents are very proud and they came to the game on all 4 days to watch me,” said Sangha adding that his parents were very supportive of him choosing cricket as a career. “I have seen with a lot of my friends with their parents putting a lot of pressure for studies and doing homework saying you can play or train later but my parents have been very comfortable and supportive of me going full out on cricket,” he said, further adding that while he still is studying but if he prioritises cricket over studies, his parents are not very strict. Sangha also mentioned that he is very grateful to his parents for taking him to trainings and being very supp