Anshuman Rath is about to take his first step towards realizing his India dream as he is set to represent Odisha in this winter’s Indian domestic season.
Rath, who holds an Indian passport, has finished the mandatory one-year cooling-off period, making him eligible to play for Odisha as a local player as per BCCI’s regulations.
It is learnt that the left-hand batsman was initially in talks with Vidarbha for the curtailed 2020-21 season but with that not materialising. He has now signed up with the state of his birth.
“I had served a year’s cooling-off period, played club cricket in Nagpur and hoped to be picked for Vidarbha. But when things didn’t happen, I had to look for a new opportunity, and that is when Odisha happened,”
I can speak Oriya, I was born in Bhubaneswar, so in many ways this was a logical next step for me.”
he told ESPNcricinfo.
Rath’s longstanding wish is to feature in the Ranji Trophy, India’s premier domestic first-class competition. The 23-year-old is currently playing inter-district matches in Bhubaneshwar to impress the state selection committee, with the start of the season now less than two months away.
One of the left-hander’s great cause of excitement is getting the chance to work and interact with former India batsman regularly and Mumbai, Vidarbha legend Wasim Jaffer, whom Odisha have named as their head coach for the 2021-22 season.
“Being an opener myself, it was good to pick his brains at the short camp we had. Obviously he has just come in, so I haven’t had a great deal of time. But from the short camp, the takeaways were plenty,”
the youngster said.
Rath played 18 ODIs and 20 T20Is for Hong Kong before shifting base to India. While he scored 828 runs in ODIs with one century and seven fifties to his name, he amassed a total of 321 runs in T20Is at an average close to 20.
