T Natarajan Becomes The First Indian To Make His Debut Across All Three Formats On A Single Tour

Left-arm pacer T Natarajan fairytale last three months reached its zenith on Friday as he became the proud holder of the 300th Test cap for Team India.

And, by doing that, the southpaw has also become the first-ever Indian to make his debut across all three formats during a single tour.

Natarajan wasn’t even a part of the original Indian squads that were announced for the Australian tour despite his stellar performances for SunRisers Hyderabad in the IPL.

It was only after spinner Varun Chakravarthy got injured that he was drafted in the T20I side.

As luck would have it, T Natarajan earned a call-up to the ODI squad on the eve of the series as a cover for Navdeep Saini, who had complained of a niggle.

Natarajan eventually made his India debut in the third One-day International in Canberra where he impressed everyone with his skills and variations, registering figures of 2/70 in ten overs.

https://twitter.com/veravazhi/status/1349892217393930243

The southpaw then made his debut in T20I cricket where, in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami, he went on to lead the attack in the eventual 2-1 series win, claiming six wickets in three games.

Following his exploits in white-ball cricket, T Natarajan was held back by the management as a net bowler for the Test series and as luck would have it, plethora of injuries to the frontline seamers meant that the fast bowler from Chinnappampatti earned his Test cap for the series-decider in Brisbane.

“Welcome to Test cricket … Thangarasu Natarajan becomes the first Indian player to make his International debut across all three formats during the same tour,” the ICC tweeted.

T Natarajan struggled initially with no-balls in his spell but bowling wise, he was pretty disciplined as he continued to bowl on one length. He eventually reaped the reward as Matthew Wade top-edged one to Shardul Thakur at mid-on, giving him his maiden Test wicket.

Well done Natarajan. First test wicket. Who would have thought that a year ago????.

— Ian Raphael Bishop (@irbishi) January 15, 2021

One brought two for Natarajan as he claimed the prized scalp of the centurion Marnus Labuschagne, who also ended-up top-edging the ball to give an easy catch to Rishabh Pant.

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