Dented by untimely injuries, Varun Aaron vows to bring fear factor to the fore, yet again

Of course, India were fascinated by Brett Lee’s fearsome pace and Shoaib Akhtar’s dazzling audacity of doing everything with the ball that would put the fear of god into the opposition mindset. Akthar’s liveliest, a bounding run of gathering energy with the delivery stride exploding at all angles, eyes afire, was the ultimate fantasy. Just that, they didn’t want on the other side, they needed one of their own who could fire those 150 kmph bullets at a regular interval - no compromise. Just sheer pace.

From the public eye, Aaron did move away. The frustrated Indians looked with the feeling that there is no end to the misery. They would never have their Andrew Flintoff nor their Jason Gillespie. However, inside the closed door, Aaron just didn’t.

“I was brought up as a cricketer at the MRF pace foundation, that’s a place where a lot of discipline is imbibed into you, a lot of values that you need as a fast bowler that you gain at the pace foundation. Growing up watching Dennis Lillee, just listening to him and being mentored by him was a dream come true. That’s what a lot of people would ask for and never get but I was very lucky to get that. I have always been very disciplined, I have worked very hard and my fitness standards have always been the best. I can look in the mirror and say that I have always been really really fit,” Aaron told SportsCafe in an exclusive interview.

Are you Surprised after reading what Aaron just said? Well, you have all the rights to be because counting the number of times he had been injured is a story worth having a discussion. The Jharkhand pacer suffered two stress fractures on the back soon after his Ranji Trophy debut in 2008-09, and just when he made his debut for India, another back injury kept him out of India's tour to Australia in 2011-12. The same injury came out to haunt him once again and had him to stay at his home for 15 months. 

“Most of my injuries have been bony injuries,” he added. “They have been fractures on which you really don’t have any control over. If you take my Under-15 days into count too, in fourteen years, I have had only one muscle injury. You cannot control a fracture but my body has matured and obviously, I have also figured ways how to not load my body too much. 

If you take my Under-15 days into count too, in fourteen years, I have had only one muscle injury.

Varun Aaron

Looking at him bowl the way he did in the last IPL for Rajasthan Royals, it was very hard to presume that he had any lethargy with him and if anything, the hard work that he had put in during the offseason was on the show. He was bowling as good as he has ever done and the game against Kolkata Knight Riders took people on a nostalgic ride to the past. The pacer won the man of the match award after taking two wickets for 20 runs, but the highlight reel would be the "banana inswinger" to dismiss Shubman Gill. Primarily an outswing bowler, bowling the inswinging delivery just didn’t happen because his wrists were coiling in the direction, it was the effort that went behind it talked.

“If you go back the funny thing is that people are noticing it now because it happened in the IPL. If you go back two years before the 2018 IPL auction we were playing Mushtaq Ali T20s at Eden Gardens too. Even I got Manan Vohra bowled in the exact same way in the Punjab-Jharkhand game two years ago. I mean, this is a delivery, which I’ve been bowling for the past couple of years. It is exactly the same ball, same end and even the same ground.”

“When I went to England last year, it was obviously on the back of not getting into IPL. It was a bit surprising because I had a good year with Punjab. In six games, I had seven wickets and an economy of just eight so I was really looking forward to playing IPL last year. But that didn’t happen to see which I decided to go to play County. It wasn't working because I was always a part of the IPL and you know for an Indian cricketer, IPL is more important. So last year just happened, I immediately got a county team Leicestershire.

“The fact that you are the only overseas cricketer for them, you have to perform day in and day out and they depend on you to get wickets is an added responsibility. In my second game, I got six wickets and Leicester won their first game in 22 Championship games. It was a big thing for them and I was so glad that I could contribute to that. For a club, who hadn’t been winning for 22 games, you pick the wickets and win the game does a lot of good to your confidence.”

“I’m still relevant in Indian cricket and I’m pushing to play for the country,” Aaron concludes, letting you think the isn't "pace evolution", which is the buzz word in the last few years, real.