JAIPUR: The wait had lasted over a decade, but for Rajasthan’s cricket fraternity, the dry spell finally ended on a historic Saturday morning in New Chandigarh. Not since Pankaj Singh stepped out in the pristine India whites has a cricketer from the state earned a coveted Test cap. After a 12-year hiatus, the desert state is back in the Test arena, thanks to a young left-arm spinner from Sriganganagar, Manav Suthar.With this monumental feat, 23-year-old Manav enters an elite club, becoming only the fifth cricketer from the state — after the legendary Salim Durani, Hanumant Singh, Parthasarthy Sharma and Pankaj Singh — to represent the state in Test cricket.Long before the national selectors took notice, the foundation for this historic moment was being laid in the domestic trenches. Vineet Saxena, the former Rajasthan player and senior men’s team coach in the 2022-23 season, vividly remembers the quiet morning during a Ranji Trophy match that year when he got his very first glimpse of Manav during a competitive game.“He was the guy who was getting players out in defense and in slips,” Saxena recalls.For an experienced mentor like him, wickets on a scorecard can sometimes be deceptive, but the technical purity of a dismissal reveals a bowler’s true ceiling. Saxena points out that what truly makes Manav an exceptional left-arm spinner is his ability to outsmart batsmen fundamentally, beating them when they are actively trying to protect their stumps.“So normally, when we look at a bowler, numbers don’t really suggest the way they pick the wickets. But if a bowler is getting a batsman out in his defense, that means that bowler has got really good quality,” the former state coach added.It was not just his tactical brilliance that caught the eye, but the incredible physical attributes of his bowling. Suthar possessed an innate ability to manipulate the ball in the air, giving it a heavy tweak that became a nightmare for domestic batters.“The second thing I observed was the revs on the ball that he gives, that is amazing,” Saxena says. “In our slang, we say that the ball is turning and drifting, and biting off the surface. So it is something to do with that revs that he is able to impart on the ball. This is something special that he has in him.”That special quality exploded into reality during Manav’s second Ranji Trophy season in 2022-23. The young spinner tore through opposition lineups, capturing 39 wickets in just six matches at an incredible economy of 2.90, punctuated by two five-wicket hauls and a match-winning ten-wicket haul.Yet, what makes Suthar the ideal modern cricketer, and why many are already looking at him as a potential successor to Ravindra Jadeja, is his immense all-around capability. Suthar was never content being a one-dimensional specialist.“In a game that season, he took five wickets against Pondicherry and just narrowly missed scoring a century. So that would have been a big, big feat,” Saxena notes. “He can develop into a good all-rounder. And in batting also, what I observed at that time was he was very keen to learn. So he had that mindset and attitude.”Naturally, any young left-arm orthodox spinner who can bat and rack up massive domestic numbers will draw immediate comparisons to Jadeja. As Manav officially embarks on his Test journey, the hype is palpable, but Saxena urges a balanced perspective while validating the youngster’s immense talent.“Jadeja is probably one of the greatest all-rounders India has produced. So I think as of now, it will be wrong to compare Manav with him. It’s a long way what Manav has to go to accomplish that,” Saxena says.Suthar’s adaptability became even more evident when he translated these red-ball performances into the high-stakes white-ball cricket. Saxena recalls how seamlessly the spinner held his own against some of the most feared, established pinch-hitters in the country, proving he is a genuine all-format asset.“Facing a star-studded Mumbai side in the practice games before Mushtaq Ali Trophy in Ahmedabad, he delivered a standout performance against Shivam Dube. Despite Dube’s notorious dominance over left-arm spinners, he choked the all-rounder’s scoring rate to under a run-a-ball and capped it off by dismissing him. That fearlessness wasn’t a one-off,”When the tournament officially got underway, Manav made his T20 debut as an Impact Player against Madhya Pradesh, tasked with containing an in-form Venkatesh Iyer.“Iyer is a good striker of the ball. In that game, he scored some 60 off 30 balls. Out of that, against Manav, it was just run-a-ball, and Manav bowled around 8 to 10 balls to him. So against pinch hitters also, he was able to contain them. He has that skill set for T20s as well. He is an all-format player, it’s not like he can only survive in the longer format,” he further added.
