In Pant’s footsteps, Anuj Rawat blossoms in IPL 2022

The path Rishabh Pant has traced, Anuj Rawat has retraced. Like Pant, he left the quaint hills of Ramnagar, a Mofussil town in Nainital in Uttarakhand, and reached Delhi with his mother to fulfill his cricketing dream. Like the Delhi Capitals captain, the left-handed wicket-keeper batsman relishes hitting big and expending his vocal energy behind the stumps.
But Rawat’s tale has just begun—and it would not be a surprise if his story adds more colourful chapters to it. He has already regered a couple of first-class hundreds, but the announcement of talent came at the IPL stage, when he rattled out a power-laden 66 off 47 balls for RCB against Mumbai Indians, flaying some of the fiercest bowlers around including the nastiest of them all, Jasprit Bumrah.

As with Pant, and so many others, the journey began in the backyard of the Rawat household. He began playing with his father, Virender and elder Prashant. “My father used to play cricket when he was young. But he never got any support from his family. He was the first one who spotted the talent in Anuj, and took him to Satish Pokhriyal, a cricket coach in Ramanagar. Anuj must have been six or seven back then,” Anuj’s elder brother Prashant Rawat tells The Indian Express about the early steps.
Virender was a cricket tragic. “My father would never miss a match; he was so passionate about cricket. It was the same with Anuj and me. At our home, there used to be a festive atmosphere if India were playing any match,” says Prashant.
Train to Delhi
After a few years, Satish Pokhriyal advised Anuj’s father that if he wanted his son to play professional cricket, he should take him to New Delhi. Exactly eleven years ago, Asha Rawat, along with her sons Prashant and Anuj, boarded the train to New Delhi. The Rawats then rented a two-room flat in Uttam Nagar, closer to Raj Kumar Sharma’s West Delhi Cricket Academy.

“I had completed my Class XIIth boards. I was anyway moving to Delhi, and Anuj also accompanied me. My mother stayed with us for six months, and then she moved back. We decided to stay at Uttam Nagar because it was closer to Anuj’s cricket academy, while my college was in Noida,” said Prashant, who now runs a digital marketing company with his wife Ranjana.
Financial hurdles
With Prashant’s education and Anuj’s cricket, Virendra started facing financial problems. He took loans from his friends and family, but sometimes it did not suffice. “From my second year in college, I started working as well. I told my father that your dream is mine too. You don’t have to worry about Anuj’s cricketing career. I will pay his school fees, his coaching fees, I will take care of everything,” recalled Prashant.
Anuj Rawat (second from the right) with his ser-in-law Ranjana Chopra Rawat (extreme left), brother Prashant Rawat, mother Asha Rawat and father, Virendra Pal Rawat.
“For a few years, we hardly interacted with each other. When I am back from college, he will be heading out for training. And when he is back home in the evening, I will be at work,” he said.
Finances became rosier, but Anuj’s career was not going anywhere. He was facing rejections after rejections. “He was not selected for Delhi Under-14 and then Delhi Under-16. For any cricketer, it is disheartening. But my father never lost hope; he will just keep motivating him. My father always knew that Anuj had everything in him and he would succeed at the professional level,” said Prashant.

It was not only Anuj who was hurt. The coach was equally anguished. Sharma took the rejection into his heart, and thus began the ‘making of Anuj Rawat.’
“Anuj always has this great self-belief. He was the most sincere among the lot, the most hard-working. If I ask him to take four laps, he will finish those four laps,” said Sharma.
He soon caught the eyes of Delhi selectors and made his Ranji Trophy debut in the 2017-18 season, when Pant was called up for India A. Anuj impressed with a fluent 71 and followed it up with another half-century against the Railways.

The pants are red, the shirt is blue. The golden lion shining through. We’re RrrrrrrrCccccccBbbbb 🎤🎶@RCBTweets pic.twitter.com/C1dDpJdJdR
— Anuj Rawat (@AnujRawat_1755) April 9, 2022
When Pant became a national team regular, Anuj began to get more chances. Next season, he regered his maiden hundred, 134 off 183 against Madhya Pradesh. Delhi were reeling at 36 for 5, before he walked in, and he engineered them to a nine-wicket win.
Soon Rajasthan Royals’ scouts picked him. He spent two years with the Royals, where he played only two games. Then RCB came calling, and realising his potential, coughed up Rs 3.4 crore, seventeen times more than his base price, to purchase him. It seems like money well spent. “Virat (Kohli), Faf (Du Plessis) and Mike (Hesson) were impressed with him at the nets. And it was team management’s decision to play him at the top, and he is doing relatively well,: said Sharma.

🧿 pic.twitter.com/BxxAp1ENd6
— Anuj Rawat (@AnujRawat_1755) April 2, 2022
His greatest strength, Sharma says, is that he is unfazed reputations. “One of the greatest strengths of Anuj is that he never goes the bowler’s reputation. He will always play the ball, not the bowler, and I have seen this in him since the first day he came to my academy,” said Sharma.
In age-group cricket, Anuj always played as an opener, but when he played in the Ranji Trophy, he had to move down to the middle order. “He is a floater. He has opened for India Under-19, even for Delhi in the Ranji Trophy. He is a complete team-man,” said Sharma, who is now the Delhi coach. So far, he has travelled behind and along with Pant, but their paths could cross one day.