Who is Prayas Barman, RCB’s New Recruit?

Prayas Barman, the latest debutante for RCB seems to be one of the many young talents that you see at the IPL. A leg spinner, he adds depth to the RCB side’s bowling and should have a terrific mentor in the form of Yuzvendra Chahal.

The 16-year old is one of the youngest players to have played in the Indian Premier League. After making his List A debut for Bengal in the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy on 20 September 2018, he ended up with the highest number of wickets for Bengal in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, with 11 wickets in his 9 games, which led his surprise inclusion into the RCB squad.

His career in cricket began at the Ram Pal Cricket Academy in Gargi College in South Delhi. After a stint in the Ambar Roy Sub-Junior Under-14 cricket tournament, he was roping in by Bengal’s U-16 team.

He was purchased to play for the side led by Virat Kohli in the 2019 Indian Premier League for a mind boggling 1.5 crores. He also played in the 2018-19 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where everybody was pleasantly surprised at the young man’s skill.

During the J&K match, he ended game with impressive figures of 5-0-20-4. In the process, he helped Bengal skittle out J&K for 96 in 23.4 overs. Bengal went on to seal the match by six wickets with 176 balls to spare.

So far, Barman has nine List A matches under his belt and has picked up 11 wickets at an average of 23 and a strike-rate of 31.00. His economy at an impressive 4.45, which means that he can restrict the batsmen from going all out.

His cricketing idols include Australian bowling legend, Shane Warne, and his team’s captain, Virat Kohli. Also, the 6’1 bowler is said to have a bowling style akin to Anil Kumble. He is the youngest debutant, beating the record set by Afghanistani player, Mujeeb Ur Rahman at the age of 17 years and 11 days.

RCB actually entered a fierce bidding war with Kings XI Punjab for the youngster and eventually won.

What remains to be seen is whether the young man’s efforts can prove to be a vital cog of arguably the weakest bowling lineup in IPL 2019, and whether the transition from domestic cricket proves to be a success or not. The IPL over the years has been the breeding ground for multiple leg spinner like Yuzvendra Chahal, Mayank Markande, Murugan Ashwin, Shreyas Gopal amongst many others, and there is no question about the value that leg spinners have in this form of the game. An exciting prospect, let’s see how he pans out in his debut match.