Arzan Nagwaswalla plays for Gujarat in domestic cricket. (Twitter/BCCIDomestic) Arzan Nagwaswalla, a 23-year-old left arm seamer from Gujarat, has been picked as a reserve player in the Indian Test squad named for the World Test Championship final against New Zealand in Southampton.
Having made his mark in domestic cricket as a left arm swing bowler, Nagwaswalla can help Indian batsmen prepare for the bowling of New Zealand’s Neil Wagner and Trent Boult as a net bowler.
“He has got that ability to bring back the delivery in, the natural left-armer and he has got very good pace,” former Gujarat right-arm pacer and coach Hitesh Majumdar told PTI, adding that the youngster has the ability to bowl at 140kph+ speeds.
Nagwaswalla picked 41 wickets in 8 games at 18.36 during the 2019-20 Ranji Trophy season, having broken into the Gujarat first-class side the previous year. He followed that up with an impressive shorter-format debut that year. He had, however, gone unsold in the recent IPL auction.
Arzan Nagwaswalla is a new addition in the #TeamIndia squad as a standby player. @GCAMotera
Watch this to know what he is capable of 🎥 👇
— BCCI Domestic (@BCCIdomestic) May 7, 2021
Arzan Rohinton Nagwaswalla, hailing from a Parsi community in a village near the Maharashtra border, is the first Parsi cricketer to break into the national team since 1975 and the only active Parsi cricketer, according to PTI.
He shot to fame with a five-wicket haul against Mumbai at the Wankhede Stadium in his debut season. He has followed that up with three more five-wicket hauls, apart from one ten-wicket haul against Punjab.
On Friday, he was named as one of four reserve players, the others being Abhimanyu Easwaran, Prasidh Krishna and Avesh Khan, in the Indian Test squad named for the World Test Championship final and the following five-match Test series against England.
Here is that guy! Arzan Nagwaswalla!! His bowling action is some where Similar to Zaheer khan’s action #WTCFinal #WTC #Cricket #INDvsNZ #bhuvi #Kohli #india #ipl #teamindia pic.twitter.com/JEg0nJlM0T
— ✌𝘽𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙪 𝙉𝙖𝙧𝙖✌ (@bannu_nara) May 7, 2021
India have a woeful record against New Zealand away from home. They were outplayed in a 0-2 series defeat in New Zealand last year. In fact, since 1976, India have won a total of 1 Test win against New Zealand away from home — under MS Dhoni in a 2009 series, in which Sachin Tendulkar scored 160 in the first innings.
Could Nagwaswalla, who has been picked ahead of the likes of Jaydev Unadkat and Chetan Sakariya, help India change that record in Southampton?
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