Shardul Thakur made yet another comeback in his cricketing career as he not only filled in ably for LSG pacer Mohsin Khan, but also now holds the coveted Purple Cap for most wickets in this season’s IPL after a magnificent spell against LSG on Thursday.
The Mumbai-based all-rounder has fallen out of favor with the Indian team management and the introduction of the Impact Player rule in the IPl has also seen his stock in the cash-rich league plummet, so much so that he went unsold in this year’s buying process.
Shardul Thakur’s unexpected comeback:
Thakur had planned to spend his summer with Essex and play county cricket for the first time. But with LSG pacers Mayank Yadav, Avesh Khan, Mohsin Khan and Akash Deep all looking in trouble, the team mentor Zaheer Khan called on Shardul and the all-rounder hasn’t looked back since.
To say that Thakur has punched above his weight for LSG would be an understatement as the 33-year-old took two crucial wickets in the match against Delhi Capitals and came back with a four-wicket haul on Thursday, making him the highest wicket taker of the season so far.
Speaking at the post match presentation about remaining unsold at the IPL 2025 auctions, Thakur said, “It was just one bad day in the auction, I didn’t get picked by any of the franchises… Like I always say, skills are always there, talent is always there. It’s just about the form and bad days, you have to go through it in cricket,”
The all-rounder also talked about the importance of remaining aggressive with the SRH batters given that they will try to maximise their chances with the bowlers.
“I think they [SRH batters] are coming hard at bowlers so why not bowlers go hard at them? So the talk was around what the plan should be and we collectively said let’s go hard at them, let’s take our chances,” Thakur added.
