Stress no more, Kamlesh Nagarkoti is back

Before Umran Malik, Mayank Yadav, and Kartik Tyagi, there was Kamlesh Nagarkoti. Unlike them, he wasn't tall, broad, and daunting. Instead, he came through at about 5'8", slender, almost unoffending but still, dangerously rapid.

When he hit 150kph in the 2018 Under-19 World Cup, he immediately carved out a section of Indian fans into Kamlesh Nagarkoti fans.

Suddenly, this 18-something was bowling deliveries that could give you toe pain by watching on TV. He swung the ball, had a mean bouncer, and did it all with brilliant control. There were hushed, utopian murmurs that the kid could bat, too.

This was a time when Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya were only recent international debutants, where pacers and fast-bowling all-rounders were still a luxury limited to overseas players for the IPL. The reaction, thus, was of a generation that had just seen its white horse prince in broad daylight.

After the Under-19 World Cup, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) signed Nagarkoti in the IPL auction for ₹3.2 crore - 77% more than the ₹1.8 crore they paid for Shubman Gill and four times the ₹80 lakh they spent on Rinku Singh that year.

There was similar hype around Nagarkoti's World Cup pace-bowling partner, Shivam Mavi, who KKR signed for ₹3 crore, too. And with seniors like Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Johnson, and Vinay Kumar around the team, the expectation was something special would soon brew at the Eden Gardens, for KKR and India.

But just then, as Indian news portals ran the story of Starc pulling out of the tournament, a call from the KKR camp went to Jaipur on the eve of their season opener. It was Nagarkoti reaching out to his coach, Surendra Singh Rathore.

"He sounded like he'd cry," Rathore recalls in a chat with Sportskeeda. "He said, 'Sir, I can't even move my legs.'"

It was a lower-back stress fracture, an injury in the L4 and L5 vertebrae, that would completely sideline Nagarkoti for the next two years. He initially had only hurt his foot but picked up the more serious back concern during rehab.

He would emerge in 2020, play a few games for KKR and then Delhi Capitals over three seasons in the IPL. Throughout, he looked far from what 2018 promised, before getting injured again. It felt like a star disappeared overnight.

That is, until a couple of weeks ago, when he sprang back up to where he belongs: the highest wicket-taker for Rajasthan in the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with 10 scalps in seven matches. The pace was up, yorkers dipped like before and the versatility of bowling in any phase of a T20 innings shone like ever.

This is the story of the boy from Barmer - who suffered the lowest of lows after the highest high of his career, who disappeared from the public limelight but was never forgotten -- told right from the beginning, in the words of his closest aide.

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Jaipur's 'Bittu' who made it big

It was exactly 10 years before the Under-19 World Cup that Rathore, the head coach at the Sanskar School, saw Nagarkoti for the first time at the Vijay Parade Ground in the Army Cantt area of Jaipur, where he had gone for some work.

Impressed, he immediately reached out to a few of his pupils who lived in the area.

"I told them, 'I saw a kid, everyone was calling him by his nick name, 'Bittu', I want to meet him.' I met the kid and asked him, 'Do you want to play cricket?' and he said, 'Yes, I want to play'."

But his father, Laxman Singh Nagarkoti, an Indian Army subedar, was posted outside town, his elder brother, Vinod was studying in Dehradun while his sister, Babita, was in 10th grade and there was no one to pick up and drop him off.

Rathore asked some seniors to bring Nagarkoti to the city and back every day and even got the school to waive his tuition fees.

"I saw a fire in him," Rathore recalls what made him to all that. "The Vijay Parade Ground was not a grassy field. You must have seen the police parade grounds, there were small pebbles all around. He was brilliantly running on that ground and chasing the ball, he was fielding very well. Then I saw only two overs of him but I found his arm action very fast... and seeing all that, as a coach, I saw an ability that he can become a fast bowler."

Rathore describes Nagarkoti as "very disciplined and devoted" in his early years at the school, making him "the apple of my eye from the start". The youngster earnestly did all the drills he was told and never complained about Rathore's policy of not giving a player any match until he was 'ok-tested' and '100% correct', either.

As Rathore began shaping him into a menacing fast-bowling all-rounder, he got the biggest validation known in north India - of the late Sonet Cricket Club legend Tarak Sinha, the coach of Rishabh Pant, and many other international cricketers.

"Even before taking Kamlesh to Sonet, I told him that I have a very promising boy. Sir said, 'Let's see'. Then I took him Sonet, and sir was also very impressed by his bowling, batting and fielding. Sir said, "Surendra, this boy will play further levels, take care of him". We were already taking care of him, but then we became even more careful."

Rathore gradually introduced Nagarkoti to local tournaments and his rise was brisk. Rajasthan gave him a Vijay Hazare Trophy debut as early as 2017.

He took Mumbai's Siddhesh Lad's wicket on debut and followed it up with a match-winning hat-trick and an unbeaten half-century in the next match against Gujarat. He ended the tournament as Rajasthan's highest wicket-taker with nine scalps in five matches at an average of 17.55, alongside scoring 114 runs.

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A career-altering injury

After Nagarkoti's unforgettable call that day, Rathore spoke to the KKR physios and asked if he should meet them in Kolkata. But he was told they had done an MRI scan and booked Nagarkoti's flights for Bengaluru after recommending him to the then-National Cricket Academy (NCA).

"For many days, we were not able to understand what the actual injury was," Rathore says. "Then we slowly understood those things. Because at such a young age, the injury he had should have never happened."

The first thing that gets the attention in these cases is a bowler's action. Nagarkoti, too, had the small issue of his front foot going a touch across, which they immediately corrected. But Rathore says that the action wasn't the major reason behind the injury, and the known doctors he spoke to confirmed the same.

"If you look at the scenario, Kamlesh played cricket continuously from 2016 to 2018. First, he played for the state, then the Challenger Trophy, then the Asia Cup, then he played against England in the U19s in India, then against England in England, then he played the Asia Cup again, then the Emerging Cup. The body requires some rest and some work on the action. If you keep doing something, you start getting some faults. In fast bowlers, naturally, when the kid is bowling continuously, the learning is less, and he is just bowling in matches, then the action shakes up a bit," he says.

The NCA physios took him to England to take medical advice in late 2018. One specialist advised surgery but another said he only needed rigorous rehabilitation, which is what the NCA ended up heeding.

Rathore said the England visit happened only on the recommendation of Rahul Dravid, then the academy's chief and India Under-19 head coach. He also believes Australia's Pat Cummins played a role in Dravid's decision.

Cummins, the now-Test captain and former KKR and DC player, suffered multiple stress fractures in his back across six years after his debut in 2012, before coming back for good in 2018 and rising as one of the world's best all-format pacers.

NCA became Nagarkoti's second home for two years. Here, he got closer to Dravid, who often cited Cummins' example to keep him motivated. Even when he was away, Dravid checked on him. The youngster also found guidance from senior internationals coming to NCA for their rehab.

His next high profile was his KKR debut in IPL 2020 (the team had retained him all these years) against SunRisers Hyderabad in Abu Dhabi, also his first T20 game.

The season didn't go exactly as he'd planned. He bowled just two overs on debut and his full quota of four overs only twice in 10 chances. There were flashes of brilliance - like his 2/13 against Rajasthan Royals in his second game - but there were also shades of unexplained struggles and inconsistency.

The same happened at DC, where he played two games in two seasons, and for Rajasthan. Rathore reveals it wasn't the pressure or nerves of the big stage, but that Nagarkoti was experiencing recurring stress on his back, which would show itself through stiffness or pain after every few games.

"Actually, the players also feel that they have recovered. And sometimes, the ones who are treating him they also think that. They put a specific load on his body and do all their processes and they think that the player is fine. But when you go back to your natural action in a match, when you put all your strength according to the situation, it puts abnormal load on your body, it's then that you actually know whether the injury has healed or not."

In April 2023, DC announced that Nagarkoti had been ruled out of the season due to another stress injury on his back. In 2024, he went unsold for the first time.

"This is the kind of injury that keeps coming back for a while," Rathore says. "Initially, you would feel stress after two or three games, then you'd recover and do rehab, and the stress might show after two or three weeks and so on. The time between the episodes increases until the player is fully healed."

Nagarkoti finally found relief earlier this year when, according to Rathore, he was "fully fit", so could play all games in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, without feeling any of those stresses and stiffness around the original injury.

The months between his recovery this year and the first Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy game of the season, where Rajasthan decided against picking him in the Ranji Trophy, allowed Rathore to work further on Nagarkoti's action and rhythm.

"We have been giving each other challenging tasks from the beginning. He gives me tasks like, 'Sir, show me how can you correct this thing [in my game]" ... "The biggest thing is that even during the injury time, it was not like he was resting at home, he used to come to the ground. And when he comes to the field, the player gets a lot of positive energy from there that he has to get back playing quickly."

Rathore says that Nagarkoti doesn't look at life and the sport too negatively too often, but acknowledges that as any other cricketer would, he felt slightly depressed and anxious about his future initially. The coach could only reinforce that failures and injuries were out of his control but were still important phases of his career.

"I told him that there is no such injury that can't get better with rest and treatment and you are young. So he also said, 'No, sir, I will make a comeback'. And he did make a good comeback."

The time has made an already close coach-and-apprentice relationship, even more inseparable.

"Our bond is even bigger than a father and son," Rathore says. "We share everything with each other. Even right now his email ID is open in front of me. I help him with banking and stuff, I mean, you don't have such bonds with even family members. But you can talk to any coach, if there's a student playing at a good level, they'd have a similar bond."

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Climbing back

The Syed Mushtaq Ali Performance was only the icing on the cake -- Nagarkoti and Rathore got their biggest vindication on November 25 when he got picked in the IPL 2025 auction. Chennai Super Kings were the only team that bid for him but Rathore knows it couldn't have gone better for his mentee.

"This time the only thing we thought was any franchise shall take him but it should be one where he gets the chance to play because he is now completely fit to step into the ground," Rathore says. "And Chennai Super Kings has always had a record of believing in new players, they give them matches. Mr. Dhoni himself has had very positive thoughts on this that youngsters should be given chances. Till now, you have seen with all the young bowlers and batters, they sign them and always play them."

Throughout the six years, the pair has been resolute in ensuring nothing changes about Nagarkoti's bowling - action and otherwise.

"Everything is the same. Speed will be the same. He has bowled 150kph in the U19 World Cup, he'll soon bowl 150+ again," Rathore says.

As the 5'8", slender, almost unoffending but still, dangerously rapid and thrill-a-minute 24-something returns strongly, so will the fairytales imagined in 2018.

"Getting his name through the IPL auction is just the first step," the coach concludes. "I won't say he would come directly to One-Day, T20I or Test teams. But if he does well in the IPL, hopefully, we'll soon see him in the T20I squad."