NEWS
Follow UsAnshul Kamboj registered figures of 8/69 against India B in the second round of the Duleep Trophy and became only the third pacer to pick up eight or more wickets in an innings in the tournament history. The 23-year-old from Haryana achieved this feat at the Rural Development Trust Stadium B in Anantapur on September 15 (Sunday).
The best figures still belong to Odisha’s Debasis Mohanty, who claimed all the 10 wickets in the innings against South Zone in Agartala in 2001. Apart from him, Bengal’s Ashok Dinda (8/123 in 2012) is the only other pacer to take eight wickets in an innings in the Duleep Trophy.
Balkrishna Gupte (9/55), Saurabh Kumar (8/64), Arshad Ayub (8/65), Bhagwat Chandrasekhar (8/80), Ravi Shastri (8/145) and Sarandeep Singh (8/180) are the spinners who have achieved the same feat in the Duleep Trophy.
Playing only his 15th first-class encounter, Kamboj completely destroyed India B’s line-up. Prior to this game, the right-arm seamer was averaging 38.14 with the ball in red-ball cricket and had never taken more than three wickets in an innings.
However, Kamboj went berserk against India B and claimed eight wickets in 27.5 overs. After India C amassed 525 in the first innings, Abhimanyu Easwaran and N Jagadeesan got India B off to a superb start, adding 129 runs for the first wicket. It was Kamboj who gave India C the first breakthrough, dismissing Jagadeesan for 70.
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He then sent back Musheer Khan, Sarfaraz Khan, Rinku Singh and Nitish Reddy to complete his maiden five-wicket haul in competitive cricket and reduced India B to 194/5 in no time. He then returned back to pick the last three wickets - Rahul Chahar, Navdeep Saini and Mukesh Kumar - and gave India C a first-innings lead of 193 runs.
Kamboj started playing competitive cricket at the age of 15 and was first seen in the Vijay Merchant Trophy 2015-16, an under-16 tournament for Haryana. In the following season, he was the second leading wicket-taker in the tournament, with 20 scalps at 23.65 in six matches. He then turned up for them in the Vinoo Mankad U-19 tournament and also the Cooch Behar Trophy before making his senior debut for Haryana in 2022.
In Haryana’s successful Vijay Hazare Trophy 2023-24 campaign, he picked up 17 wickets at 16 and did so at an economy rate of 3.58. In the semi-final against Tamil Nadu in Rajkot, he picked up his best figures of 4/30 to help his side defend 294 including the wicket of Baba Indrajith.
Kamboj served as a net bowler for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 before making his debut for Mumbai Indians (MI) in 2024. The right-armer featured in three games and picked up two wickets, dismissing Mayank Agarwal and Shreyas Iyer.
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