Saurabh Netravalkar - Former India Under-19 Player, Software Engineer, US Cricket Captain

Saurabh Netravalkar is a former India Under-19 player, software engineer and he is also the captain of US Cricket team. Saurabh has worked hard to follow his passion. He was part of the India Under-19 team in the World Cup squad of 2010. In fact, Saurabh was India’s leading wicket-taker in the campaign of Under-19 World Cup.

He had also gone on to scalp the big wicket of current Test captain of England, Joe Root. Furthermore, he had taken a wicket of talented Pakistan batsman Ahmed Shehzad. In 2013, Saurabh Netravalkar went on to play in the Ranji Trophy. He represented his state Mumbai and claimed three wickets while playing against Karnataka.

Saurabh has been an all-rounder in his life.

However, Saurabh wasn’t happy with his cricketing career as he was not able to crack the next level. Thus, he got a job of a software engineer in the USA. He went to give GRE and TOEFL.

“I gave two years full-time to cricket but felt I wasn’t making it to the next level,” he told TOI over the phone from San Francisco.

Subsequently, Saurabh landed a job with Oracle as a software engineer. However, Netravalkar always had cricket at the back of his mind. Thus, he decided to follow his love for the game. He drove six hours from San Francisco to Los Angeles during weekends.

“On Friday, I used to leave a little early from office with a fellow player and drive to LA. We would play a 50-over game in LA on Saturday. Then we would drive back in the night and play a 50-over game in San Francisco on Sunday. It was back to work on Monday. I put in a lot of effort which was noticed by the selectors. I got picked this January when I became eligible for national selection,” he says.

Now Saurabh Netravalkar is the captain of US Cricket team. In fact, he was picked Guyana Amazon Warriors in the CPL, although he didn’t get a game in the league. US Cricket team will take on Oman in the ICC World Cricket Division League 3, where they will play qualifiers for the 2023 World Cup.