From being a content developer at Amazon to dismissing Cheteshwar Pujara, Suryakumar Yadav and Prithvi Shaw, Vasuki Koushik has seen sinusoidal changes in his professional life.
His three-wicket burst (17-3-28-3) on Saturday against West Zone has placed South Zone closer to regaining the Duleep Trophy.
But then that performance was a true reflection of the effort that the medium pacer put in to become a cricketer even while traversing the corporate domain.
“At this level, we have quality batsmen and the margin of error is very small. If you look at one on the leg side, to which Pujara got out…I stick to my strength and I feel that with my kind of pace I hit the right length and move the ball from there, even the best batsmen could get out,” said Koushik.
The level of awareness in him about his craft is quite natural considering that Koushik holds a mechanical engineering degree from Visvesvaraya College, Bengaluru.
That mechanical precision was visible in his bowling on the day as well. Koushik hit all the right lengths as batters struggled to score off him.
Prithvi Shaw was caught in two minds whether to leave or play and Koushik’s delivery rearranged his timber after taking deflection off his bat. The 30-year-old Koushik explained that he had different plans for different West Zone batsmen.
“Yes, we had different plans for their batsmen as captain (Hanuma) Vihari was spot on with his ideas. If you see Pujara struggled against the ball that came in, and it was keeping a little down in the fourth innings.
“I felt there was something in the wicket as it was cutting a bit when I bowled outside (off-stump) and I thought it would cut if I bowl in to the batsman as well. This was my plan and I stuck to it,” said Koushik, an employee of Central Excise and Customs.
The South Zone selector S Sharath was so impressed by his performance that he came up to Koushik and gave a few tips about bowling post the day.
Koushik too knew that being part of a Duleep Trophy-winning side would take his profile to the next level.
“This is the first time I am playing in the Duleep Trophy. If you see we have taken the big wickets. We are confident of getting those remaining five wickets as they still need 118 runs.
“We have quality fast bowlers. Vidwath had done well in the first innings, Vysakh was really bending his back. So, we are really confident,” he said.
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