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- Karthik Narayan

Amphibians in cricket are those characters on the cricket field who do both bowling as well as batting and are as good at one as at the other. Well, the Indian domestic scene has so many of these men who form the backbone of the very game itself. Well, one of those many super talented people happens to be Reetinder Singh Sodhi of Punjab.

Being the son of a former Ranji Player, (Inder Singh), this youngster marched into the world of cricket at the ripe age of 15, when he played in the India Under 15 team leading it to victory in 1996 at Lords. He was also an active contributor of the victorious Under 19 team that won the World Cup in 2000. The Indians conjured famous wins in that series and also came to own the Cup itself, which catapulted this young man from a nobody to a household name, that you and me start talking about!

A player’s Ranji Trophy debut can be compared to the spring bloom of new flowers and the chirp of the birds. It brings in new talent to play and showcase their skills at the highest level. The cold winter goes and the warm summer comes in. After making his Ranji List-A debut on 10th Dec 1996 against Delhi at the Feroh Shah Kotla, immediately the next day, his Ranji First Class debut came against the same team at the same ground. It was rather a very bad start to his career, that match was a total domination by the Delhi batsmen as they amassed runs. With the bat, he managed to salvage 18 and 43 in that match.

He had to wait just a week to showcase his immense talent with the ball as he reported his best List-A bowling till date, a magnificent 5/22 against Services bundling them out for just 97. The very next day, Sodhi scored a valiant 55 against the same side. Close on the heels of this match, Sodhi had a see saw game where he bowled a dream spell of 10-6-9-1 against Kerala in January 1997 and a 5-4-1-0 to be amongst the best economical performances of that season.

The 1997-98 season began with a bang – he scored a terrific 200*, his highest score at that time and first ever first class hundred, a classy aggressive knock against Delhi. He had made his debut against them, got creamed when he bowled, and did not do much with the bat and now was payback time. The next two seasons saw very little of this young man, but things looked great in the 1999-00 and 2000-01 seasons when he became the perfect and complete all rounder in the Ranji Circuit. In 1999-00, he made 803 runs with the bat with 2 centuries, and 29 wickets. In 2000-01 he made 715 runs and also picked up 26 wickets with his medium pacers. That had transformed him totally into a cricket amphibian, the performances being good enough to make him top contender for best all rounder in the Ranji trophy in those seasons.

Soon when the selectors of the Indian team switched on their red alert for new youngsters to be groomed in the national side, Sodhi was noticed and given the green signal to play finally at the age of 20 in Dec 2000 against Zimbabwe. His ODI stints were never something great; it was rather mediocre for someone who had shown so much promise. He did show some great stunts as a fieldsman, he was a livewire on the field, hurling himself here and there, stopping the good shots and saving valuable runs. But nothing really from the bat or ball, made the selectors think about continuing him. His highest score of 67 came against the West Indies at Harare in the finals of the Tri Nation Series which also included Zimbabwe, but India ended up losing that match. After 18 ODIs, (the last coming on 21st Nov 2002 against West Indies) he was shown the red ticket signaling his exit from the International arena.

Sodhi is the typical example of confidence building measures; he picked himself up when thrown into the dust of modern day cricket. Coming up against failures, he has shown tremendous spirit to come back into cricket and make a BIG name for himself. For all youngsters reading and anxious to make it big in cricket, do take this lesson from Reetinder Singh Sodhi – have the passion and the never-say-die attitude and learn to take failures as stepping stones to success.

Cricket is a bigger game than just a few failures. Things never looked down for this cheerful chirpy youngster who has always something to contribute to the game. He has shown tremendous spirit and desire to excel in the cricket field and he has always worked hard to do well in the domestic circuit. The current season has seen this youngster, now 24 years old with over 7 years of experience of cricket full of maturity. In this season to date, he has scored heavy – and has an awesome average of 109.66! With his highest score of 251* in First Class Cricket coming against Maharashtra in Dec 2004, and his stingiest performances with the ball, the signs are ominous – Sodhi is going to call the shots, and call for a place in the Indian team very soon.

That knock against Maharashtra in early December 2004 came with Sodhi opening the innings. After a decent performance with the ball when Maharashtra batted, (11-3-23-3), this man played like a raging bull having seen a red scarf; he belted, creamed and also at times caressed the red cherry with all the might and the carnage was so much present in the Maharashtra bowling cards which read 4 bowlers going for more than 100 runs. With good support from his partner Ravneet Ricky (opening partnership of 270), and later with Yuvraj Singh, Pankaj Dharmani and Ankur Kakkar, Sodhi helped Punjab pull off a fascinating win at his favorite ground, the Punjab Cricket Association Ground at Mohali.

With Dinesh Mongia, Gagandeep Singh doing national duty, expect this all-rounder to become the cartwheel of Punjab cricket in this season. Good luck to this lad to aim for the skies! With his early Christmas gifts having come, wait for the New Year fireworks from this stupendously talented youngster who has found himself at the perfect time.

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