For Aniket Verma, March 22 was a night of vision. He had been told earlier that day that he will be starting in the Sunrisers Hyderabad playing XII for the season. It should come as no surprise that the 23-year-old struggled to fall asleep as he imagined various match scenarios and considered strategies to make it matter.
The theme of Aniket’s ascent has been seizing opportunities.
After making a comeback in the Madhya Pradesh Premier tournament in 2024, another state T20 tournament where scouts typically spend their “off-season,” he was noticed by an IPL team last year. Aniket got a trial with SRH before to the major auction after scoring 273 runs in six innings, including a 32-ball 100 and 25 sixes overall. This was the league’s top run and sixe total.
Aniket made the most of the chance when the trial finally arrived.
“First in the PowerPlay, we were told to score 65 in 6 overs,” he told Cricbuzz again. “We had to do it in pairs, and we would have to skip the simulation if we didn’t. That was easy for us to do. We were instructed to score 85+ runs in 8 overs in the second scenario. In four overs, we achieved that. In the first scenario, they wanted us to play all six overs, and I scored about 72 runs in that time. I received a score of 64 out of 85 in the second one.
Because of his impressive performance, SRH was unable to ignore him and purchased him at auction for INR 30 lakh. An evening spent in the dugout watching SRH’s top-order making jaws drop like it was 2024 followed the restless night before the RR game. However, his opportunity arrived with 10 balls remaining in the innings. Rather than feeling anxious, Aniket left with a sense of thankfulness.
“I was just happy that I gave my chachu (paternal uncle) this moment that he can feel proud of,” said Aniket.
As his nephew took strike and hit a six on the first ball, Aniket’s chachu, Amit Verma, experienced an inexplicable feeling of déjà vu from all the years he had spent chauffeuring Aniket around for club and divisional tournaments where he swung his bat around shamelessly.
Aniket lived in Bhopal with Amit after losing his mother when he was a little lad. “Even when he was six months old, among all the toys laid out for him, he would go pick the bat and ball,” Amit relates. “When other relatives used to visit and see this, they would joke that maybe he’ll go on to become a cricketer.”
Aniket’s passion for the sport grew, but in a difficult financial condition, finding official coaching was difficult. But Amit was just as committed to the sport as Aniket was, and he took it upon himself to support himself without sacrificing his passion.
“My family did not encourage me to play cricket when I first started. Our financial situation was weak,” Aniket says. “I used to get encouragement from my uncle. He also like cricket, and he could see that I did too. “You play, I’m with you,” he said. I’m with you, so do whatever you want. Don’t stress over anything. Thus, he helped me everywhere and in everything. He would meet my requirements even if he was unable to meet his own.
Because of his dedication, 10-year-old Aniket was accepted into the Ankur cricket academy in Bhopal, where he was mentored by coach Jyoti Prakash Tyagi. Amit balanced his day work with driving his nephew 13 km one way every day. When he wasn’t present, Aniket would finish his warm-up before setting foot on the ground and cycle all the way. Tyagi thought Aniket was different from his friends in a lot of ways right away.
Aniket recalls, “I scored 256 in a match in the Ankur league.” “Jyoti Sir assured me after that game that I would eventually score 400. “Well played” is not what he said. “You’ll score 400 one day,” he remarked.
Tyagi’s foresight wasn’t just empty rhetoric. Seeing the child punch out like no one else in his age group gave him the confidence he needed. “His ability to hit sixes was significant because a child between the ages of eleven and twelve doesn’t have a lot of power. According to Tyagi, he was endowed by God with extraordinary power.
As he advanced through age-group cricket, Aniket was reliable and impressed Tyagi with his frequent high scores in inter-division games. According to his uncle Amit, Aniket’s unwavering devotion to the sport was the reason for the outcomes. “Aniket didn’t care about anything else. I’ve observed other children his age who are interested in watching TV, participating in sports, or viewing films. Amit remarks, “But Aniket had nothing else on his mind.”
Amit, on the other hand, was looking everywhere. Aniket once had to go to Jabalpur for a division game when he was fifteen years old. Despite not having the funds, Amit purchased a phone for him by taking out modest loans from a number of acquaintances, which he eventually paid back.
The COVID-19 epidemic quickly interrupted Aniket’s rising trajectory, but it had no effect on the course of his voyage. Actually, it gave a vital aspect of his game an unanticipated boost. Because Ankur Academy is located in the centre of Bhopal, it was unable to operate properly during the lockdown. Aditya Shrivastava, the captain of the 2021–22 Ranji team, and Aniket were among the cricket players from the academy who were sent to the Faith Cricket Club on the outskirts of the city to practise.
“A lot of help for my power game came from Faith Cricket Club,” Aniket says. “Because we could always use the centre wicket whenever we needed to practice, and their ground is practically an international venue.” I learnt about my shooting range and type of shots from that. I am aware of what I can clear. Then, in order to make necessary corrections, Aniket would study videos of his hitting sessions to see where he was lacking, where his head was toppling over, and where his body balance was functioning.
After he kept improving at the academy, he eventually made his coach’s prophecy come true. “I scored 400 against Chambal in a four-day inter-division tournament two years ago. “Tyagi sir called me after I made that 400 and said, ‘I told you, you’ll make this,'” Aniket explains.
Aniket recalls something more important to his style of play—possibly the reason SRH signed him—from that knock. “I hit 41 fours and 16 sixes in that innings,” he says with pride.
He now gets the opportunity to watch and learn from Heinrich Klaasen, who is probably one of the game’s top six-hitters, thanks to the IPL team. Aniket went directly to the South African for a tutorial after spending a lot of time viewing recordings of his batting.
“Klaasen told me about his game and how he hits sixes with such a strong base and without losing his position (shape).” He talked to me in great depth, and he shared everything with me, even while we were discussing how to attack balls of various lengths throughout the game,” Aniket adds.
Aniket has admired Hardik Pandya among Indian hitters and has asked the MI captain batting questions whenever they meet. “When I meet Hardik, I’ll ask him about his bat flow,” adds Aniket. This is an opportunity that will come up again in six days in mid-April in Hyderabad and Mumbai.
On March 27, Amit returned to the location to witness Aniket’s lengthier demonstration of his finishing prowess. He went 36 (13) in the loss to LSG after scoring 7 (3) against RR, with 30 of his runs coming in sixes.
His mischievous smile states, “I want to hit the most sixes this season,” referring to his IPL 2025 goal. After the season’s first two games, he has now hit six of them, matching Travis Head and Ishan Kishan’s total. SRH will be pleased with their scouted pick’s performance thus far and may even allow him to pursue his six-hitting ambitions.
India
