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The Speedster- Shivam Mavi | IPL 2020 | KKR

Shivam Mavi doesn’t belong to this Social media world. He is 21. Most of the 21-year-olds, I know, live their life on Instagram. They share every single moment of their life, with different captions, but Mavi is different. He keeps it simple, quiet. Most of his posts are just birthday wishes, his training pictures and thank you posts. You don’t get a glimpse of his life other than that. He chooses to be quiet.

However, on the field, you don’t see someone as aggressive as him. He hates giving away runs even if it is just a practice match. He would terrify batters with his brutal bouncers and yorkers. He literally enjoyed the pain on their eyes. You definitely don’t want to be on the receiving side.

Everything began when he was very young. Probably, eight. That age where the most number of parents take their kid to cricket coaching as if everyone wants to become one. Most of them found it as a past time. A place to get away from school. For Mavi, he wasn’t into the game (well, professionally) as well until he watched Dale Steyn one day on Television. He fell in love with fast bowling, and wanted to do it, wanted to become a fast bowler.

His coach gave him time to groom and a two to three years later, he began to play for Delhi U-14. Here, he learnt most of his basics. Despite being one of the leading performers, he didn’t make it to the Under-16 side. However, he met a few players who were double his age and learnt from them. One of them was Pradeep Sangwan.

He then went back to Greater Noida based on his coach’s advice. He tried with UP’s under-16 team and got in. His family also moved nearby in order to make him comfortable. Mavi was their priority, and they were ready to do anything for him, even if it means re-establishing the business. They eventually did.

A few months later, He suffered from an ACL injury that kept him away from the game for a while, and his speed, technique dropped a bit. However, he slowly picked up and changed his style as well. He began to concentrate more on inswingers.

A few months later, he had good performances that led to the selection for Board President XI team, which took on England under-19 team. Mavi produced one of the best deliveries, an inswinger that defeated the edge to dismiss Tom Banton. Luckily for him, Rahul Dravid was there at that time. Dravid was on the hunt for his Under-19 World Cup eleven.

Later, in 2017, Afghanistan was in Greater Noida, their adopted home venue to take on Ireland. The team needed a net bowler(a pacer) at that time. The then coach Lalchand Rajput made a call to Mavi’s first coach asking for a local player. The coach suggested Mavi’s name. Nobody out there believed that Mavi could bowl quick, but when he began to bowl, things were different. He bowled to Nabi, Shahzad and many more. This was his first major breakthrough.

He soon became a regular in the under-19 team that went on to win the World Cup with ease under Prithvi Shaw. At that time, Mavi teamed up with Nagarkoti, destroyed opponents with their speed and swing. Their bowling speed made headlines on social media for continuous days. They were trending on Twitter and caught the eyes of legends including Dada, Bishop. Soon, multiple players from the team made it to the IPL, Mavi was one of them.

They are all youngsters they are allowed to enjoy the moment. They did, and thankfully for them, they had Rahul Dravid at that time. The coach made sure that they didn’t take these social media trend to their head and made them concentrate on the game. The team came out in flying colours.

Mavi went on to play in 2018 edition and ended up with a few wickets. Though he did well for a debut season, he was on the expensive side.

Right after the season, he went on to play in Vijay Hazare Trophy that year where he ended up picking a hattrick against Saurashtra, in his second match.

Months later, while gearing up for his second season of the IPL, he injured himself and unfortunately, was ruled out of the season. It took him months to recover, and when he did, he slowly returned to the game.

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Everything was going well, and Mavi was playing against Railways in the Ranji Trophy that day in December 2019. He had six wickets in the match, but he felt something bad with his back. As feared, he injured his disc and was out of action again.

This postponement of IPL is a blessing in disguise for the young man who couldn’t have recovered in time to play all the games if the tournament was in April-May. Thankfully for him, he had enough time to recover completely now. He did not train until June.

Later, he had Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Suresh Raina helping him out. As Mavi was returning from injury, Bhuvneshwar Kumar made sure that he continued to concentrate more on the swing rather than the speed.

Bowling to Russell is the only major training he needed. Russell aims to hit every single delivery hard even in the nets and certainly that was a big challenge for Mavi. He did manage to get better of Russell a few times.

Mavi isn’t completely fit to reach his old speed but still is effective. Today’s bowling is an example of that. He came to bowl when two of the most challenging batters were playing. He came up with a shorter delivery to dismiss Samson and then Buttler fell for his fuller delivery.

In a year or two, he certainly will be playing for the senior team, and he does have a big role to play for sure.

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