Shreyas Gopal, moving out of the shadows

Bengaluru, April 3: His forearm is not littered with tattoos. He unabashedly celebrates wickets. Who will not after getting the game changing scalp of Virat Kohli? And his celebratory run can give complex to Imran Tahir. But amid all that he mouths no expletives. Kindly welcome Shreyas Gopal to your must-follow list of sportspersons.

On Tuesday night at the Mansingh stadium, Jaipur, Shreyas reminded us that what a bloody good cricketer he is. Rajasthan Royals captain Ajinkya Rahane handed him the ball in the 7th over. The Royal Challengers Bangalore were comfortable at 48 for no loss then while openers Kohli and Parthiv Patel looked set to lay foundation for their first win of the season.

Shreyas dealt a body blow to RCB removing Kohli with beauty of a googly, after having nearly dismissed the RCB captain the previous ball with another wrong'un. In recent times, Kohli had shown a weakness to googly and as per a data released by Cricinfo, the Delhi man's strike rate to googlies was a mere 85.7.

In the next over, he jettisoned AB de Villiers with another googly, one that stopped on the batsman and kept a tad low. Shimron Hetmyer fell to yet another wrong'un, the one that spun away and took an edge en route to wicketkeeper Jos Buttler. At that point, Shreyas' spell read an incredible 3-1-8-3. And RCB never really recovered from those early blows, settling for a below par score.

In fact, this is the second time Shreyas dismissing Kohli and De Villiers in the same innings, matching the feat achieved by RCB bowling coach Ashish Nehra. Obviously, such a spell and the names of batsmen he dismissed can turn the spotlight on a bowler. But for those who followed Shreyas' career this performance will not evoke incredulity.

He is a two-time Ranji Trophy winner with Karnataka, he averages 35 with bat and 26 with the ball, in this IPL alone his economy stands at 5.5, a hat-trick against Rest of India in the Irani Cup, four first-class hundreds and upwards of 200 wickets in all domestic competitions. You have the gloating rights!

In 2019, he took 13 wickets from eight Mushtaq Ali matches, finally opening the doors to the India 'A' set up, managed by Rahul Dravid. The IPL franchises have fought hard battles on the auction table even for players with half the credentials of Shreyas but he hardly attracted bidding wars.

In fact, during the initial part of his IPL career Shreyas largely warmed the benches at Mumbai Indians. It is quite inexplicable as why did he remain underrated. But Royals picked him up from the IPL auction 2018 and the switch allowed him some more game time. He picked up 11 wickets from 10 innings at 16.9 in IPL 2018 for Royals and his overall IPL economy is 7.35 - highly satisfying for a leg-spinner.

"I am fortunate and lucky to have gotten those big wickets. I'm saying it as a youngster getting such big names out doesn't come everyday. I was just fortunate, and the plans worked. Coming in to bowl in the 7th over, we had built a lot of pressure in the Power Play. I had come in after that, and because the batsmen were trying to score off me, I managed to get the wickets. Pretty comfortable bowling my variations, I rely on my gut feeling while deciding what to bowl," Shreyas said.

It all sounded so casual, almost to the point that he did not want to take the credit for turning the match in favour of Rajasthan Royals. It sounds so startling in a world where self-promotion is the latest gospel. But he hardly travels on that route.

The last update on his Twitter account was on November 11, 2016. His Facebook account too does not have any look-at-me-you-envious-world kind of posts. He keeps his success to his personal world. But let's celebrate him. It's long overdue too!