Gurinder Sandhu

He loves Rugby, has delivered Pizza as a teenager and his parents were born in North West Punjab. These abstract facts are about Gurinder Sandhu. In January 2015, Sandhu became the first player of Indian descent to play for Australia in ODIs. And guess who were the opponents? India!

At the age of 5, Gurinder had started rubbing shoulders with kids twice his age and as a teen was identified as one for the future. The chance came. The stage was the 2012 Under-19 World Cup. Sandhu with 10 wickets in 6 games managed to finish as the second highest wicket-taker for the Australian Colts.

The tall and burly fast medium bowler managed to earn a rookie contract with New South Wales in the same year and by the end of the summer had done enough to win the NSW player of the year award for the 2012-13 season edging past Brad Haddin and Trent Copeland. He remained in peak form in the One Day games for the next few seasons which culminated with his ODI debut but his form at the first-class level dwindled.

At the BBL he thundered in his debut season for Sydney Thunder scalping 10 dismissals and ending up as their highest wicket-taker. After leaving the Thunder briefly for a stint at the Sydney Sixers in 2020/21, Sandhu returned to the Sydney Thunder the following year.

By Kumar Abhisekh Das