Bowling in Team India nets helped me get IPL contract, jokes Aniket Choudhary

Mumbai: Royal Challengers Bangalore are all but out of contention to make it to IPL 2017 playoffs but Aniket Choudhary, the left-arm pacer, managed to keep his wits and left the media contingent in splits as he jokingly said that bowling in the Indian cricket team nets helped him earn Rs 2 crore in the auction this year.

Indian team management called up Aniket, who had scalped four wickets against the Bangladesh side while playing for India A, ahead of the four-match Test series against Australia as they looked to prepare for Mitchell Starc and Co.

The tall pacer was in the mix as he could generate an awkward angle like the Australian fast bowlers would.  His experience bowling against the likes of Virat Kohli and Co, definitely changed his fortunes.

The Rajasthan cricketer, whose base price was Rs. 10 lakh, was a hot property in the IPL auction, as RCB bought him for a whopping Rs. 2 crore after a bidding war.

When asked what he gained from bowling to the Indian team, the 27-year-old bowler said: “The gain is that I got Rs. 2 crores. Just kidding. It was a very good experience if you are bowling (against) the top Indian batsmen and getting them out and that’s when main Virat kee nazar main aa gayaa (that’s when I managed to grab Virat’s attention) that he is the guy from Rajasthan and he is bowling. If you are bowling against the best batsmen and getting them out, there is no better boost than that. After that whichever domestic competition you go, like when I played Ranji Trophy, I was very confident. It appeared a lot easier then.

“In the last practice session I was bowling to AB (de Villiers) and he told me don’t go with the result, you are bowling well. In this match, he was backing me from the first ball.

“On the last ball, a thought came to mind whether I should bowl a slower one or the faster one because that was, may be, the match-changing point. I went to him and asked him what should I bowl,” said Choudhary.

“He said he (Hardik Pandya) may be ready for the slower one so you should go with the hard length. And it is hard to go against the suggestion of world class cricketers and I thought may be he is right.

“Virat wasn’t happy with what I bowled. He thought I did the wrong thing and I should have bowled full and slow,” said Aniket while explaining what he discussed with the South Africa before he conceded a six on the last ball of the 18th over.