Irani Cup 2023: Emerging pacer Vidwath Kaverappa takes inspiration from McGrath

Vidwath Kaverappa (24) is a stickler for accuracy. He admits that he does “try to base his bowling” on Glenn McGrath’s. And there’s one other similarity. Like McGrath, he doesn’t have a tearaway tempo. He bowls within the early 130s.

“I know that I don’t have the added advantage like Navdeep (Saini) has of that extra pace. So, I know I have to be consistent, that I have to make the batter’s life somehow difficult. I stick to my line and length, that’s what I’m known for even back home in Karnataka,” he says on the second day of the Irani Cup match right here on Monday.

But he idolises Dale Steyn. He’s even tried to alter his bowling motion to “semi-side-on” like Steyn’s. “But it didn’t work for me. So, I stopped it. I’m a proper front-on bowler,” he says.

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There is one factor from Steyn that he’s been making an attempt to include, although.

“I know I have the potential to bowl faster. I’m working on it. It’ll come out slowly. You can’t expect me to jump from 130 to 140 all of a sudden. It’ll come on its own. I’m waiting for it. I know it’ll come someday, and that day is pretty soon!”

The one factor that he most admires in Steyn is his run-up. “His run-up is one of the most beautiful, smooth [and] rhythmical run-ups I’ve ever seen!”

When advised that he too, has a visually pleasing easy run-up, he says: “I try to base it on his (Steyn’s) run-up. It’s not as smooth as his, but I’m trying to work on it.”

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Kaverappa is from Kodagu. He says the place that doesn’t have plenty of cricket performed and is thought for hockey. Because of this, he’s indulged in sports activities like hockey, soccer, handball, and basketball till class X. “Just to skip classes and keep up my fitness level,” he says.

But he feels that having performed different sports activities helps him be agile on the cricket subject.

“I always had my dream of shifting to Bangalore and pursuing cricket once I finished my tenth. So, that’s what I did.”

Since then, Okay.L. Rahul’s childhood coach Samuel Jayaraj Muthu has been his coach.

It may very well be stated that Kaverappa has been fast-tracked into the Karnataka State squad.

“I didn’t even know that my name would be called up, I had zero expectations. I had played the u-19 State and everything, and then what happened was, I used to go bowl to the senior team whenever they used to have their nets.”

“For me, it was like, I can go over there, learn from them, see where I stand in terms of my skill, what is it that I have to develop so that I can make it to the next level.”

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“So, I kept bowling over there, kept bowling well and all. And then, all of a sudden Prasidh was drafted into the Indian team, and they had a vacancy over there. They gave me a call, and I was like, ‘What is happening, I have no idea.’ They just called me, I just went, and I just went with the flow.”

He made his debut for Karnataka within the Ranji, the Syed Mushtaq Ali, and the Vijay Hazare trophy final yr. He has received the most recent editions of the Duleep and the Deodhar trophy with the South Zone crew, and on Tuesday the Irani Cup with the Rest of India crew.

Source web site: sportstar.thehindu.com

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