Kolkata Knight Riders handed a cap to pacer Rasikh Salam on Wednesday evening, when they took on Mumbai Indians in Pune in match 14 of IPL 2022. But, this was not Salam’s debut IPL game; in fact, he had made his IPL debut for Mumbai Indians in 2019 but had been away from the league for the past two seasons.
Why? Here’s why:
In June 2019, Rasikh Salam, the Jammu and Kashmir seamer, was handed a 2-year ban by the BCCI “following a discrepancy – submission of faulty birth certificate to BCCI“. Yes, Salam is another of those cricketers who was found guilty of frauding his age!
According to official records submitted earlier, Salam was born on April 5, 2001, and thus was eligible, and was even selected, for an under-19 triangular one-day tournament in July 2019. But was then removed when the BCCI handed him a two-year suspension. Now, ESPNcricinfo’s record says he was born in 2000.
Salam had made his List-A debut for J&K in October 2018, played his maiden first-class match in January 2019; he was picked up by Mumbai Indians in the 2019 auction for INR 20 lakh and played a game that season, wherein he leaked 42 runs in four wicketless overs against Delhi Capitals before being dropped for the entire season. He still, though, is an IPL champion with MI in 2019.
Now, that his ban is ended, Salam got into KKR’s eleven against his former team, Mumbai Indians. However, he hasn’t had any domestic experience recently; all of his 2 first-class, 2 List-A, and 6 T20s – in which he picked up 14 wickets – came until 2019 before he was banned and he didn’t get an opportunity in the last domestic season for J&K.
Fans are excited to see how the youngster goes about his business and what he’s worked on during the past two years away.
