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As Harsha once said, "In Indian cricket, we don't plan things. An accident happens and suddenly we are in the right place". This is indeed true. There have been quite a few things which happened accidentally but changed Indian Cricket for good.
Thread..1/n
Thread..1/n
First and foremost the most famous accident in Indian Cricket. The making of an opening batsman who was going to rule the world cricket for the next 20 years. Yes you guessed that right. The master himself who became an opener purely by an accident.
On March 27, 1994 one of the regular openers of Indian team Navjot Singh Siddhu woke up with a stiff neck on a match day and conveyed to the team management that he can't play. This was the opportunity the young Sachin Tendulkar was waiting for.
He went to captain Azharuddin and Manager Ajit Wadekar pleading for a chance to open. He said that if he failed, he would never come asking for a chance to open. Given this confidence of young Sachin, the team management obliged. What followed is history.
Before this match Sachin had scored 3116 runs from 119 matches at an average of roughly 33. In this match in Auckland he smashed 82 off 49 balls(imagine this inning in that time). After that, over 2 decades, he played 344 matches scoring 15310 runs at 48.39 including 45 100s!!
The second one is about Jasprit Bumrah. No, I am not talking about how Mumbai Indians scouted him and an unknown unassuming boy with a weird bowling actions was suddenly bowling against and getting the wicket of mighty Virat Kohli.
So in 2016, India were touring Australia for a 5 match ODI series to be followed by 3 T20s. Despite showing great competitiveness, India wete trailing 4-0. Virat and Rohit had both scored 2 100s each so far in the 4 matches but still failed to get India over the line.
The players selected only for T20 series had all arrived before the final ODI. Among them there was a certain Jaspreet Bumrah, who was a part of Indian team for the first time and was eagerly waiting for his turn which would arrive in T20Is.
But as the luck would have it, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar got injured ahead of the game and no decent replacement was available. That's when someone informed Jaspreet he would be playing the 5th ODI.
He took the ball, bowled a short ball which hurried an Inform Steve Smith who ended up pulling it straight to Rohit Sharma at short mid wicket. Later in that match, Bumrah bowled Faulkner with an yorker in what was to become start of so many iconic bowled dismissals.
He returned with the figures of 10 overs 40 runs, 2 wickets in a match where Aus scored 331. India successfully chased down the target on the back of Rohit Sharma's 99(wrongly given out) and Manish Pandey's sublimely mature hundred.
Bumrah had announced his arrival to International cricket in style. Since then there was no looking back. He went on to become the most valuable bowler for India across formats and perhaps the most consistent bowler in the world.
The third story or rather the accident is not very well known but fascinating nonetheless. In 2016, KL Rahul was not seen as a T20 prospect and so didn't get a place in playing XI in first 2 matches.He got his first against MI.While he scored 23 (14), he hardly looked convincing.
After he scored 7 off 10 against RPS, Virat had decided to drop him. But due to a minor injury related unavailability of a some player(Mandeep Singh perhaps), he decided to give him one more chance against Gujrat Lions.
In that match, KL started cautiously before going on to make a sublime and classy 51*(35) with 4 4s and 3 sixes. In the match, Virat scored 100 and the two had a long unbeaten partnership. Virat was clearly impressed by KL's batting and that got him a permanent place in the XI.
In the following matches, he went on to score 51(28), 52(32), 38(35), 42(25), 68*(53), 16*(6), 38(23), a golden duck(ironically against GL from where his rise had started), 11(9).
In total he ended up with 346 runs from 11 innings at an average of 38.44 and strike rate of 148.5. on the back of this performance he made his India Debut against Zim scoring a debut 100 before making a sublime T20I hundred against west Indies.
As it stands, he is one of the elite talents in the world and one of India's finest batsman in the limited overs format. But it all started with that one incident.
I have more stories to add but feels like too lazy to do so. So this marks the end of this thread. Hope you enjoyed reading it.
