The importance of being Nattu aka T. Natarajan in the ongoing IPL

If it so happened that you did turn away from the maddening and crazily exciting world of the Indian Premier League, if only for a bit, and recollected what’s significant about April 4, then chances are you’d remember it happens to be the birth anniversary of T. Natarajan. 

One needn’t be an Ian Bishop to remember that name. 

But that’s only if you were tempted to grasp that, with much due respect to the world’s most talked about T20 league, there’s more to cricket than the IPL. 

Fondly called Nattu, the left arm pacer whose neck break speed and unwavering consistency to bowl within the stumps earned him a national cap in the pre-Covid era is sadly nowhere to be seen nowadays. 

That he’s turned 32 isn’t a mind boggling piece of news anyways for birth anniversaries come and go. 

However, it’s a little disenchanting that the If it so happened that you did turn away from the maddening and crazily exciting world of the Indian Premier League, if only for a bit, and recollected what’s significant about April 4, you’d remember that it happens to be the birth anniversary of T. Natarajan. 

But that’s only if you were tempted to grasp that, with much due respect to the world’s most talked about T20 league, there’s more to cricket than the IPL. 

Fondly called Nattu, the left arm pacer whose neck break speed and unwavering consistency to bowl within the stumps earned him a national cap in the pre-Covid era is sadly nowhere to be seen nowadays. 

That he’s turned 32 isn’t a mind boggling piece of news for birth anniversaries come and go. 

However, it’s a little disenchanting that the the premier cricket journals and publications aren’t even talking about the absence of a man, who just a few years ago captured the imagination of the world thanks to his world class bowling talent. 

It’s almost as if the noted left arm quickie who captured the imagination of the Punjab Kings and the Sunrisers Hyderabad didn’t exist, which is when, youngsters in a batting obsessed country were trying to emulate the way Natarajan bowled his yorkers. 

On the away tour to Australia right before the year the world plunged to the despair of the Covid enforced lockdown is when Natarajan came into his own and controlled the freely stroking Australian batters.  

But today’s a lot different. 

Surely, his India stint appears to be a tad bit short lived given all T. Natarajan came to play were no more than 4 T20 internationals and a couple of ODI’s in case one forgot that one off Teats he was made to play. 

But his tally of 40 wickets in the Indian Premier League, where he played 36 games did suggest a story that was taking its own shape before the path seemed truncated by no other reason besides a spell of injuries. 

Surely, it’s one thing to be a big hitting batter nowadays that can capitalise the opportunities that seem to be aplenty all thanks to the mushrooming of T20 franchises world-over. 

But it’s sadly something quite different to be a mainstay fast bowling option that goes to represent the country for the long run. 

The latter is what Natarajan desired doing except he’s nowhere to be found nowadays. 

With his rhythmic run up, focused approach to the game and the general discipline about his craft, T. Natarajan offered fresh promise to uphold to tighten the screws around the batters. 

We saw plenty of that in the previous edition of the IPL, which is when he was just mounting a comeback post a slew of injuries that saw him hanging more in the hospital compounds than in the cricket stadia. 

Rather gladly, we saw that the other night in the game against the Royals, Natarajan’s utility two for spell compelled the great Brian Lara, SRH’s head coach, to offer rich compliments. The batting great was really impressed by the spirited effort and the comeback that Nattu was keen to make offering a glimpse of it back then.

Bear in mind that the ongoing IPL edition is nothing but a brand new opportunity for Nattu to come back and take a renewed approach for India consideration yet again. 

And what we have in the days ahead is something that might well be a make or break for this very talented seamer whose move to Chennai from Salem laid the foundation to his India journey. 

May that journey continue and fetch rich rewards for a talent that still has so much on offer to a cricket obsessed nation.