From Temple Drive to Airport Surprise: Saransh Jain, Aquib Nabi Get Their India Call

One was driving to a temple when his phone delivered the news he had waited more than a decade to hear. The other was at an airport, preparing to board a flight to Bengaluru, when suddenly his destination changed. Sri Lanka was calling. And so was Team India.

Saransh Jain and Aquib Nabi have taken very different routes to the Indian Test dressing room, but as India prepare to face Sri Lanka in the first Test at Galle from August 15, the two uncapped players find themselves at the same extraordinary point in their careers.

For both, the call-up is the reward for years spent doing the less glamorous work of Indian cricket: playing domestic matches, taking wickets and waiting.

Saransh's decade-long wait

For Madhya Pradesh spin-bowling all-rounder Jain, the breakthrough came more than 10 years after his Ranji Trophy debut in 2014-15. “I got to know on my phone that I was selected when I was driving to a temple,” Jain said in a BCCI video.

His domestic numbers explain why the call eventually came. Across 54 first-class matches, Jain has scored 2,223 runs at an average of 31.75, including two centuries and 14 fifties. With the ball, he has picked up 188 wickets at 27.30, including five five-wicket hauls.

But the lesson that carried him through the long wait came from home. His father Subodh, himself a former Ranji Trophy cricketer for Madhya Pradesh, kept telling him to remain patient. “Keep patient; things will come to you automatically,” Jain recalled his father telling him. Now that patience has taken him all the way to India colours.

Nabi was heading to Bengaluru. Then came the call.

Nabi's moment was considerably more dramatic. The Jammu and Kashmir pacer was at the airport, preparing to fly to Bengaluru for a camp at the BCCI Centre of Excellence. Then he was told he wouldn't be going to Bengaluru after all. He was going to Sri Lanka. “I could not believe it,” he said. “It was unexpected, as the squad was already out.”

Nabi has been brought into the Indian squad as a replacement for Jasprit Bumrah, completing a remarkable rise after playing a central role in Jammu and Kashmir's maiden Ranji Trophy triumph this year.

And he didn't merely take wickets. He took 60 of them at an average of 12.56, finishing as the tournament's leading wicket-taker. His season included seven five-wicket hauls and career-best figures of 7/24.

‘Nothing could be bigger than this’

Nabi admitted he had begun hoping an India call might come after his performances, but tried to keep his attention on the one thing he could control: taking wickets.

“I knew that someday I will come to the Indian team,” he said. Now he is sharing nets and a dressing room with cricketers he once watched on television.

“My family is happy; nothing could be bigger than this for me,” he said.

For Jain, the defining word is patience. For Aquib, it has been wickets. And ahead of Galle, two domestic cricketers who spent years believing their turn would eventually come have discovered something rather wonderful: Sometimes the road to Team India runs past a temple. Sometimes it begins at an airport gate.

(With inputs from ANI)