Akash Deep became India's newest Test star with a stunning ten-wicket haul, headlining India's Edgbaston victory. Aadya Sharma traces his journey so far, speaking to those who helped him through his early days.
India may seem like the glitzy, spoilt brat of the cricketing world, but part the shimmery curtains, and you’re exposed to the humbling stories of real people. They remind you that, in the sprint for quick money and shortcuts, there are still those who climb up the hard way.
Akash Deep’s journey is born out of personal tragedy. His cricketing career so far marks a reflection of his toil, like a climber carving his way up a rock with a stone in hand, freed by the fear of free-fall, with only the summit in sight.
At Edgbaston, Akash found his finest cricket moment yet. For those who have seen him grow, this is just the start.
The chorus of celebration would have been as loud in Kolkata, his adopted base, as Sasaram, his quaint hometown 500 kms away. Fifteen years ago, he’d left one for the other, in search of his real purpose.
“After losing my father and brother within a year (in 2015), I wanted to do something in life,” Akash said after his Test debut last year. “If you lose two elders of the family, you have nothing left to lose.”
“He did not have much idea about the leather ball”
Saurasish Lahiri, Bengal’s U23 coach, vividly remembers his first encounter with Akash at Cricket Association of Bengal’s indoor facility in 2017/18. “He was absolutely a rookie,” Lahiri tells Wisden.com. “He was playing tennis-ball cricket in Asansol, on the outskirts of Bengal, and staying with his uncle”.
By then, Akash had returned to cricket after a three-year sabbatical, still hoping to make a dent in the game.
“The locals told me he was really fast, but they hadn’t seen much of him,” Lahiri says. Tempted, the coaches decided to call him up.
“He did not have much idea about the leather ball. And believe me or not, he was bowling really fast.”
With the monsoon on, an U23 camp was being organised indoors. “It’s a hard surface, but he had no idea about it. Experienced bowlers generally protect themselves on hard surfaces, but he was running full-fledged and batters were really struggling. After a few balls, we had to stop him, because it was really scary.”
Convinced, they called him back for U23 selection matches.
“Everyone was finally convinced he could play”
When he returned, Akash had developed a stress fracture of the back. Lahiri explains how a naive Akash was oblivious to the extent of the injury, and the treatment.
“In a few days’ time, we were travelling to Bengaluru for pre-season matches. I was very confident and instrumental in taking him to Bengaluru: I knew he was not going to play, but if I left him in Kolkata, at that point of time, there won’t be anyone to get his recovery done.”
The selectors asked Lahiri: “He has not played any cricket. How do you know he’ll play any in the future?”
Lahiri remains grateful to CAB’s then-president Sourav Ganguly and joint-secretary Abhishek Dalmiya for backing and keeping Akash on the tour for rehab. “He wouldn’t be here without that support,” he says.
It was only at the fag-end of the next pre-season tour in Visakhapatnam that Akash finally got a chance, until which Lahiri kept the selectors’ queries at bay.
In a practice game against Mumbai U23 – featuring Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tanush Kotian and Shams Mulani – Akash smashed 58 off 26, and then took five wickets.
“Everyone was finally convinced he could play,” Lahiri says. He went on to feature in the CK Nayudu season (26 wickets at 30) and the U23 one-dayers (8 wickets at 17), before the next transition.
Akash’s maiden foray into first-class cricket came when Ashok Dinda, Bengal’s leading wicket-taker in the format, was dropped. In his second game, he tore open Gujarat with a six-wicket haul at the Eden Gardens.
“He never looked back from there,” says Lahiri.
Months before that Ranji debut, Akash got his first break into the Bengal’s T20 team, led by former India international Manoj Tiwary.
“The Bengal team was searching for a pace bowler who could tonk a few with the bat,” Tiwary tells Wisden.com. “I was making the T20 team. Someone told me in my ears: there’s one guy in that category. I did research with the U23 team captain and found out more about Akash.”
Tiwary recalls his first impression of Akash: strongly built, dedicated and with an immense hunger to do well. “Someone coming from Bihar to Bengal (moving states) will naturally be more focussed. On his first day, he looked interesting. Whatever was said about him was true”.
"There is a place [dormitory] for players who come from West Bengal," Tiwary describes, "and outstation players who don’t have money to stay in hotels. There is a small building with few rooms within the Eden Gardens behind the indoor facility."
Former Bengal coach Arun Lal, who also played a role in bringing Akash Deep to the fore, described the dormitory as a “hellhole”. “I thought people would die of disease there,” he recently told Times Now.
“Being there with so many rules and restrictions: was not easy for a grown-up boy,” Tiwary says. “He sacrificed a lot.”
A month after being a finalist in the U23 CK Nayudu Trophy in 2019, Akash got a T20 cap. In his first three T20s, he took six wickets, three of which were bowled.
“I texted Virat Kohli”
The groundwork for Akash, the Test bowler, was laid in his first Ranji season: he took 35 wickets at 18 in Bengal’s run to the final, forming a formidable pace battery alongside Mukesh Kumar and Ishan Porel.
Tragically, the Covid-19 pandemic came soon afterwards: fighting with uncertainty, Akash resorted to training back in his village in Bihar. By August 2020, the Rajasthan Royals offered him a net bowler role: happy with the money, and a chance to learn from Jofra Archer, he agreed.
Tiwary remembers how he was keen on Akash heading to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru instead, who he claims also offered him a similar role.
“I texted Virat Kohli when Akash was with Bengal,” Tiwary says. “Told him he bowls really quick and bowls for long”. When Tiwary got to know Akash had joined RR instead, he was “very upset”.
“I didn’t want him to go down a path where he missed out on time, which we, as seniors, have experienced.”
“Only a fool can make such a decision,” Tiwary admonished Akash, disappointed at him missing the chance to impress Kohli in the nets. “That would have helped you.”
“He didn’t mention the money. He comes from a humble background, I realised later that he really required INR 5 lakh.”
Akash did not play for the Royals, but next season, he got picked by RCB, debuting in 2022.
“He is physically so strong”
Akash’s first-class numbers make for an impressive reading: 138 wickets at 23.79, six five-fors. His best season came in Bengal’s run to the final in 2022/23, when he took 41 wickets at 21, three five-fors included. He also has a first-class fifty, a record-breaking one off just 18 balls, adding to the X-factor that impressed many at first sight itself.
“He bowled a lot of overs in the Ranji,” Tiwary, who retired at the end of that season, points out, with Akash having outbowled everyone else in the Bengal team. “Before joining the Indian team, he had a good enough experience of days cricket. He developed control over length and variation.”
“He used to bowl the one that comes into the right-hander,” Tiwary says. “I remember telling him: ‘If you want to play at the highest level, you have to develop the outswinger. Even if it keeps straight, it will help’. He worked hard to bowl outswing. He mastered that length.
“Initially he was a little shorter. Over time, he knew which lengths to bowl.”
Lahiri points out that Akash’s physicality truly puts him apart.
“He’s gifted,” Lahiri says. “He is physically so strong, that is God's blessing. He has tremendous legs and core power. He is in the best of the system, knows about his body, nutrition. He is a good learner, still evolving.”
A veteran of 100 first-class matches, Lahiri marvels at Akash’s pace and consistency, and the knack for producing the magic ball.
“I had the good fortune of playing all around the country, and understanding all conditions. I always felt the time between lunch and tea was the best possible period for batters to bat in Indian conditions.
“But Akash is someone who has the ability to get a set batsman out during that period, by surprising him with pace and bounce. Even someone of the stature of Rajat Patidar or Ajinkya Rahane, who's batting on 70 or 80, he can certainly surprise you with a ball that can get you out. He has that quality, and that is a really, really rare quality. He’s a 100 per cent guy. Very humble, very committed.
“Nowadays, you see bowlers holding back some of their spells: some bowl with 80 per cent intensity, some with 90 per cent, others with 60 per cent. I can tell you: from the first ball to the last, he’s going to be bowling with the same intensity, whether it’s a club, state or international match. That is his USP.”
“Cricket has changed but the line and length haven’t”
Laxmi Ratan Shukla, the former India all-rounder, now coaches Bengal, and has been mentoring Akash for the last four years. He drilled into Akash what he learned from Sourav Ganguly, making the off-stump, and the channel outside off, your haven.
“If you have to bat in Tests, you have to leave the ball outside off stump,” Shukla says. “And, if you are a fast bowler, you need to target the off stump and outside channel. That’s the recipe: of a good meal and a good bowler.
“We learnt from Sourav Da, and we’re forwarding it. Cricket has changed, but the line and length haven’t.”
Shukla was against Akash trying to add an outswinger to his arsenal. “Akash shouldn’t change,” he says. “In the middle, he was advised to develop outswingers. But at the age of 25-27, you can’t change your biomechanics. I told this to (Mohammed) Shami, and I tell it to Akash and Mukesh (Kumar) too. You can’t change yourself.
“He is not an outswing or inswing bowler. He is not a swing bowler. He is a seam bowler.”
Shukla wants Akash to stick to his “naturality” and keep maximising his strengths. An innocuous mention of the gooseberry fruit comes next. “I’ve asked all of them to have amla, to get their Vitamin C levels up. Helps prevent injuries”.
Shukla also reveals that part of Akash’s development has been learning to stay level in success and failure.
After being picked for Bengaluru in IPL 2021, he did not play a single match that season. “He was very disappointed. We told him, you are a big player. You will play well. This is not the start, there's a long way to go.
“Now, even after a five or ten-wicket haul, he has no emotion. He is normal.”
Shukla also advises against harping too much on Akash’s background. “He has been with Bengal for 15 years, he is from Bengal only. I will not comment on who is from a humble background and who he isn’t. Whether you are humble, up or down: we do not define the class. Everyone comes from a good family.”
“He is bowling with a slight alteration”
Edgbaston is just the start: there’s still a long way to go in the series. For a country hardwired to see Jasprit Bumrah stand solo, it mattered even more for a replacement to come in and shine so spectacularly.
Those close to him feel Akash could have been lethal in Australia too, if given more than just two Tests. “He could have been a series-deciding bowler,” says Tiwary, unhappy that a “Delhi bowler with limited experience” got the nod instead.
“He bowled well in all his Tests before England, but he didn’t have the wickets column to show,” Lahiri says. “He kept on beating the edge very frequently, but not getting the outside edge.”
“He is bowling with a slight alteration,” Lahiri observes. “He was bowling a bit up, at 8-9 metres length in Australia. In England, he’s hitting the 6-8 metre length pretty consistently. He is a very quick learner”.
After the fourth day, I messaged him: “Panja nikaalna hai (you need to get a five-for). I’ve seen him getting too many three or four wicket hauls. I was praying: 'Abhi paanch mil jaye (let him get the fifth)'”.
With No.9 Brydon Carse slightly disturbing his numbers, Lahiri was hoping the figures don’t go too awry. “I prayed for it to stay at 5-99, and not tick past 100. Eventually he got his sixth”.
“It was a statement to the world”
Lahiri puts his relentlessness to the difficulties Akash has grown up with.
“He’s gone through such a tough childhood, such hardships in life, it reflects in his game. In Edgbaston, flat conditions, it was really difficult for the bowlers,” he says.”Akash has grown up to that hardship and has tremendous love for the red-ball game. That happens once you go through the grind of the best first-class structure in the world, and learn to bowl in different conditions.
“He isn’t someone who has bowled two good spells in the IPL, and got recognition. He has earned it in a way, and he is here to stay.
“The ball that got Joe Root out. That is a statement. He is always bowling that ball. It is his forte. It shapes in and goes away. But to bowl that from that far and wide of the crease, and get the best in the history of the game: that took a magical ball, and he produced that. It was a statement to the world, that he is here to stay.”
After the match, Akash dedicated his performance to his elder sister Jyoti, revealing through stuttering words that she had been battling cancer for the last two months. “I wanted to give her a smile,” he said.
“I never imagined he would speak about it publicly — he must have said it out of emotion,” she told Indian Express later. “It would have come from the heart”.
Last February, Akash dedicated his debut performance to his late father. “It was my dad’s dream for me to achieve something in life. Until he was alive, I couldn’t do anything.”
Years ago, Akash set out for his dream on his own. Now, his story isn’t just his, but backed by the love of crores.
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