Haris Rauf Recalls Meeting Ravi Shastri as Net Bowler at MCG: 'He Says You Came As Net Bowler And Now...'

Pakistan speedster Haris Rauf is perhaps the best white-ball bowler at the moment. But his journey  to the national team came via Australia and particularly Melbourne. Before the 29-year-old became the pace sensation that the world batters fear, he was a rising sensation in Big Bash League where he played for Melbourne Stars. That’s where the world finally took note and later Ravi Shastri when he was invited as a net bowler at the MCG—the venue for India’s third Test match on 2018-19 tour.

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Being a net bowler to the Indian cricket team, he had seen the likes of KL Rahul, Virat Kohli. He has also met head coach Ravi Shastri, and therefore bowling to the same bunch in the Asia Cup was quite amazing to say the least.

Recalling his meeting with ‘Shaz’, he told ‘Crickwick’ how Shastri reminds him of ‘those days’ whenever he meets former coach.

“Aksar unse (Ravi Shastri) se mulakat hoti hai, wo kehte hai ‘yaar ek net bowler jaise tum hamare paas aye they…aur jis tarah tum world me bowling kar rahey ho tumhara ek naam hai. Jab hum tumko dekhte hai to hume kafi khushi milti hai. To unhe sara pata hai jaise Virat bhai bhi kafi appreciate karte hai ki ek time tum net bowler bhi they.” (Whenever I meet Shastri, he always remins me how I was a net bowler once and now you have so much fame. So, he knows where I came from. Even Kohli appreciates where I have reached.)

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Earlier, he had opened up on those two sixes that Virat Kohli hit him in the opening encounter of the T20 World Cup 2022. He said he would have felt bad had any other batter had hit him, but since Kohli was the one, he didn’t feel bad about it.

“The way he played in the World Cup, that is his class, we all know the types of shots he plays. And the way he hit those sixes, I don’t think any other player can hit shots like those off my bowling. If Dinesh Karthik or Hardik Pandya would’ve hit those sixes, I would’ve been hurting but those came off Kohli’s bat and he is a different class altogether,” Rauf told Cricwick.

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