Akash Deep

Akash Deep's is the ideal story of how years of toil gets you a dream Test debut where Rahul Dravid hands you the cap, and in the first hour of the game, you run through the opposition's top order.

Hailing from Sasaram in Bihar, Akash was initially dissuaded to play cricket by his father, but he left for Durgapur, West Bengal, in 2010 with the pretext of finding a job and found support from his uncle to join a local cricket academy. Soon, he started gaining prominence for his pace, but Akash was struck by family tragedies, when he lost his father and older brother within the space of two months. That forced him to leave the game for three years.

Akash, however, didn't give up and moved to Kolkata where he started with the United Club in CAB's Second Division League. He also met Mohammed Shami in the city and after working on his fitness he progressed from the mid-130s to bowling long spells with more pace. In 2019, he made it to the Bengal Under-23 side and the same year gave him his senior debut for Bengal in all three formats. In just his second first-class game, Akash bagged a six-for, against Gujarat, on his way to 35 wickets in the season at an average of 18.02 in Bengal's run to the Ranji final.

He continued to pick wickets with the white ball as well, which got him his maiden IPL deal with RCB in 2021. The year 2023 turned out to be a big year for him. He started the year with a 10-for against Haryana in a Ranji game and grabbed a five-for in the semi-final against Madhya Pradesh to be named the Player of the Match. Bengal went down in the final again, but Akash had risen through India's premier first-class competition to bag 41 wickets, this time the most for his team. He soon featured in the Duleep Trophy, flew to South Africa for an A tour, was India A's top wicket-taker in early 2024 against England Lions and made a memorable Test debut against England in Ranchi with a fiery opening spell.

Vishal Dikshit