A raw 17-year-old teenager from J&K caught everyone’s eye during the Elite Group ‘C’ of the Vijay Hazare Trophy played in Chennai recently. Prodigy pacer Rasikh Salam was a virtual unknown quantity before he made heads turn with his impressive performances. On the back of his strong showing, Rasikh was called up by three-time IPL champion Mumbai Indians for trials ahead of next year’s IPL.
Chennai:
In the two matches he played, the youngster, hailing from a small village of South Kashmir’s Kulgam, took three wickets. His performance shone through in the game against host Tamil Nadu at Chepauk where the skiddy customer nailed the crucial wicket of wicketkeeper-batsman N Jagadeesan for six. Returning for a second spell in the climactic stages, he saw the back of B Aparajith to hasten TN’s end.
The IPL franchise, captained by Rohit Sharma, didn’t waste time in identifying the talent. An associate member of the Mumbai Indians (MI) saw his performance against Tamil Nadu and was impressed by Rasikh’s bowling. “The talent scout of Mumbai Indians was impressed with his spell given his tender age and limited exposure. Later, he invited Rasikh for the trial camp of Mumbai Indians,” a source close to JSKA revealed.
One of Rasikh’s chief attributes is he can bowl at a good speed besides swinging the ball both ways. Another notable fact is that Rasikh had no experience of playing in age-group level cricket before making his debut for J&K.
Rasikh hogged the limelight when he was selected by J&K’s mentor and India all-rounder Irfan Pathan in a talent hunt camp held at Shei-I-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar. Pathan and Parvez Rasool, the J&K skipper, were all praise for the youngster. Mumbai Indians has the knack of discovering prodigious talents, one of them being leg-spinner Mayank Markande, who gave a good account of himself in his maiden IPL this season.