Rasikh Salam made a comeback in IPL on Wednesday while making his debut for KKR against his former team MI after serving a two-year ban for age-fudging.
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Jammu and Kashmir medium-pacer Rasikh Salam made his debut in IPL for Mumbai Indians in 2019. In his debut season, at the age of 17 years and 353 days, he was said to be the youngest player to make their debut for the Mumbai Indians.
However, it was later found out that he had submitted a ‘faulty birth certificate to BCCI’ and he was subsequently banned for two years due to age-fudging ahead of India Under-19 triangular one-day series in England, with Bangladesh in July.
Salam was replaced with Prabhat Maurya in the 18-member squad and it derailed his career early with little or no hopes of him making a comeback.
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It was only hope against hope for Salam in the past two years to make a comeback. But the former Mumbai Indians bowler kept at it and practiced throughout the odds to stay ready for an opportunity.
“For an athlete, who had just started his career, it was very difficult to phase all that, but his family was very supportive…”
“MI provided mental support and training. He would often be in Mumbai to train,” his brother Nadeem Dar told Sportstar.
His cousin Nadeem, understood the difficulty of the situation, and further helped him to train whenever he would visit home in Kulgam. “We had come up with a plan on how to train regularly. Every day, we would go to the park nearby for practice. He would bowl and I would bat, and that would go on for a few hours. In the evening, we were back again with a similar drill,” Dar said.
“After playing in the IPL, he had gained that experience, so there would be times when Rasikh would even guide me with gym sessions. Both of us enjoyed those sessions. A lot of people said that bahot mushkil hoga comeback karna (it would be very difficult to make a comeback), but none of us paid heed to those things. We knew that he has age on his side, and he is a tagda (strong) bowler, who has the potential to play for India.”
And on Wednesday, Salam was rewarded for his patience, as he got his cap for KKR to play against his former franchise in the IPL 2022. He was bought for a base price of INR 20 lakh by the Kolkata franchise.
Salam made a steady start to his second stint in IPL as he bowled three wicket-less over and conceded 18 runs.
