Who is Saurabh Netravalkar, the bowler who ran through San Francisco Unicorns with figures of 6/9?

Washington Freedom bowler Saurabh Netravalkar registered brilliant figures of 6/9 as his team beat San Francisco Unicorns by 30 runs in match No. 11 of Major League Cricket (MLC) 2023 at Church Street Park in Morrisville on Sunday.

The left-arm pacer ran through the San Francisco Unicorns batting line-up to register the best bowling figures in the T20 competition so far. Thanks to Netravalkar’s brilliance, Washington Freedom also confirmed their place in the playoffs of the inaugural MLC.

Set to chase 134, San Francisco Unicorns were bowled out for 103 in 19.5 overs. Netravalkar cleaned up Marcus Stoinis (3) and Shadab Khan (0) in his second over and then dismissed Matthew Wade with the first ball of his third.

He returned in the last over to dismiss Chaitanya Bishnoi (16), Haris Rauf (0), and Liam Plunkett (5) to finish with a six-fer.

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Saurabh Netravalkar: The Mumbai man who plays for the USA

Born in Mumbai in October 1991, Netravalkar is a tall left-armer, who grabbed some limelight when he claimed 30 wickets in six matches in the 2008-09 Cooch Behar Trophy.

He was also the leading wicket-taker with eight scalps in the Under-19 tri-nation tournament in South Africa, which was played just before the World Cup in New Zealand in 2010, a tournament he was also part of.

Netravalkar, however, did not get too many opportunities in a strong Mumbai squad. He only played one first-class match for Mumbai, which came against Karnataka in Bengaluru in December 2013. Netravalkar claimed three wickets in the match even as Mumbai went down to Karnataka by 160 runs.

The Mumbai pacer subsequently decided to look elsewhere for opportunities. He made his debut for the USA in March 2019 in a T20I against UAE in Dubai. The 31-year-old has featured in 48 ODIs and 20 T20Is and has an extremely impressive record.

The pace bowler has claimed 73 wickets in ODIs at an average of 22.27. In T20Is, he has 19 scalps at an average of 20.94 and an economy rate of 6.31.

Netravalkar was part of the USA squad that featured in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 Qualifiers in Zimbabwe recently. He claimed 3/53 against West Indies, getting the scalps of Brandon King, Roston Chase, and Keemo Paul.