Aniket Choudhary: Virat Kohli calling me to bowl at India nets is my biggest achievement

02/22/2017

Aniket Choudhary, who has been purchased by the RCB franchise in the IPL auction, has said that getting called by skipper Virat Kohli to the Indian nets was the best thing to have happened to him. He also called Kohli his idol and talked about how Kohli has instructed him to stick to the basics.

Indian Premier League has had the reputation of throwing some unexpected surprise packages to the limelight since its inception. While the selection of the likes of KC Cariappa, Murugan Ashwin and many others raised eyebrows, it has also brought some talented cricketers to the limelight. Latest entrant to the list is Aniket Choudhary, the Rajasthan pacer, who was picked for a whopping price of Rs. 2 crores by Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Choudhary said, “I am really pleased that RCB picked me at the auction. It is a huge boost to the confidence when a franchise which has stars like Kohli, Chris Gayle, AB de Villiers among others feel that you can add to the team. But to be honest to you, my biggest motivation was when Kohli called on me at the India nets. To have a batsmen of his stature wanting to face you in the nets is a feeling I can’t express in words,” reported CricketNext.

The left-armer is in Pune now to reportedly help the Indian team batsmen prepare for the left-arm bowling of Australian spearhead Mitchell Starc.

“I was there when the Indian team was preparing for the Test series against New Zealand and people said I was preparing them for the Trent Boult-challenge and here I am bowling to them going into the Test series against India and the media is talking about me preparing them for the Starc-Test. But I don’t like to get into these things. My job is to go out there and help the batsmen get a good net session,” he said.

Although, Sri Lanka white-washed Australia by preparing spin-friendly wickets last year, left-arm quick Mitchell Starc was the pick of the bowlers for Australia. With not-so-different atmospheres in India, Starc is expected to be the main threat for Indian batsmen.

“Also, I think it is a case of a similarity in height and the angle from which the ball comes out when you are a left-arm pacer that makes the media feel that I am being used to prepare the batsmen for the challenges that Starc will bring. Personally for me, it is about working towards achieving my goal of playing for India soon.”

Speaking about his to-be-skipper Virat Kohli, Choudhary said, “He is unbelievable. The kind of work-ethics he has is amazing. He is my idol and I look at him and try to learn everything possible. He has always kept it simple and asked me to focus on my basics. He told me to bowl to my strength and not get overawed by the situation and that has really helped.”

For Rajasthan, Aniket and senior-pro Pankaj Singh made a lethal pace-bowling pair and from 39 first-class matches, he has picked up 124 wickets. In the shortest format of the game, he has picked up 33 wickets at an economy rate of 7.47. But the pacer understands the challenge of shifting between the white and the red ball.

“I do realise that the challenges of white ball and red ball cricket is very different. I played for Central Zone recently and did decently I would like to believe. I have already started to work on my bowling further and I have a month’s time to get the act right. I will be working on the change of length, the yorkers and the slower deliveries mostly,” he signed off.

Aniket Choudhary: Virat Kohli calling me to bowl at India nets is my biggest achievement

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