There are professionals who get flashy success instantly. History has seen a lot of cricketers rise to prominence in a very little time. After the commencement of various cash-rich leagues across the world, it has become easier to get the limelight. One or two brilliant showdowns can spread the goodwill of a cricketer from China to Peru. But there’s always a flipside to it. There are players who toil hard for years in silence and keep ticking the boxes to get their deserving reward.
Indore-born off-spinner Saransh Jain certainly belongs to the second category. His father Subodh Jain was also a First Class cricketer who played 9 games for Madhya Pradesh and as it is said, “Home is the first school”. Saransh’s father was also an off spinner and his first coach. The lanky off spinner made his Ranji Trophy debut at a tender age of 21 but the presence of Jalaj Saxena, a talismanic all-rounder with a similar skill set to him, made him wait for years to get consistent opportunities.
Jain’s career number shows that he has played 54 First Class games and has taken 188 wickets beside amassing 2223 runs with a couple of hundreds. But the surprising thing is, he got most of his opportunities post the Covid-19 pandemic. It was Chandrakant Pandit, the head coach under whom Madhya Pradesh team blossomed to a Ranji Trophy triumph, saw something special in him and took a bold call. After the Kerala game, Pandit dropped Mihir Hirwani from the playing XI and included Saransh for the Punjab game. Saransh grabbed the opportunity and picked up 6 wickets across both the innings and his unbeaten 20 helped MP to pile-up the first innings lead. He picked up 13 wickets in 3 games he played and scored 105 runs in that season, which included a fine 57 against Mumbai in the final of the competition.
In the next season, Saransh took 35 wickets and was placed in the 13th position in the wicket takers leaderboard. His story remained remarkably consistent over the next three seasons as he picked up 27 wickets in 2023/24 season, 21 in 2024/25 and 30 in 2025/26 season. Chandrakanth Pandit made a small tweak in the angle of his bowling and that did wonders. Saransh mostly bowled from over the wicket but Pandit insisted him to bowl from round the stumps. One hazard of that change is that the off spinner would be bereft of LBW options in most cases as the pitching would mostly be outside leg stump. But Saransh’s penchant to make the balls skid to go away from the batters would have helped him to test the outside edges and make the batters prone to give outside edges. Saransh had an ability to turn the odd balls in and those are one crucial weapons in his armour. Effectiveness of those were visible in last year’s Duleep Trophy when he flummoxed Ricky Bhui and Andre Siddarth of South Zone to give West Zone a couple of crucial breakthroughs.
However, his bowling exploits would not have been enough to make the cut above the rest. After Ravichandran Ashwin’s international retirement, India are still in desperate search of an off spinner who can actually bat. The age factor is against Jalaj Saxena and Jayant Yadav. That leaves Saransh and Tanush Kotian, the Mumbaikar all-rounder who adds immense value to his state side with his lower order batting. Saransh bats at the top order in the local cricket league in his state and he showed his batting prowess this season. He scored his career best 103* against Saurashtra on the back of a horrible middle order collapse. The impact of the century increased as the bowlers were the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Jaydev Unadkat, Chetan Sakariya, Chirag Jani. He amassed 518 runs at an average of 57.55 mostly batting at the lower order.
But in Indian cricket, the system is such that you have to show your excellence in the India A series to let everybody know how well prepared you are. Saransh got his India A call-up for the Sri Lanka tour earlier in June and notched up 70 runs with the bat beside taking a four-wicket haul in the first innings. That was the ultimate testament to his all-round prowess and selectors had a good headache about his selection. On Tuesday morning, Saransh made the headlines when the team was announced.
India’s two-Test series against Sri Lanka is about to start from 15th August and the island country is known for being conducive to the tweakers. India have four spinners in the line-up and Saransh is only the right arm bowler among them. If we go as per the traditional match-ups, Sri Lanka side boasts a couple of southpaws in Kamindu Mendis and Sonal Dinusha, against whom, Saransh can be fatal. His ability to turn the ball in and take the ball away from the right handers also makes him a potential wicket taker. Ravindra Jadeja is a sure starter in the playing XI and it is hard to ignore Manav Suthar after a prolific Afghanistan series. But if the conditions and playing combination allows, we might see the Test cap number 320 to be presented at Galle on the morning of the 79th independence day.
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