Saurabh Netravalkar had a dream season with both the United States cricket team and the Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket in 2024. 

Netravalkar was a part of the USA team that jointly hosted the T20 World Cup edition in June 2024. He played a key role in the home team reaching the Super 8 stage, a historic achievement in their first-ever appearance in the T20 World Cup.

The left-arm pacer finished as USA’s highest wicket-taker with a tally of six wickets from six games at an average of 20.83 and a strike rate of 18.83. But more than the wickets what stood out was Netravalkar’s economy rate and his ability to handle pressure in the grandest of stages.

Placed with India and Pakistan in Group A, and only two teams qualifying further from the group, USA would have aimed to win their remaining matches against Canada and Ireland and give something for the fans to cheer about.

But the hosts stunned Pakistan in a thrilling group game at Dallas, winning in the super-over, and opening up the entire group in the qualification process. Netravalkar bowled an impressive spell of 2/18 in four overs, which included 13 dot balls and just one hit to the fence. The Washington Freedom pacer held his nerve in the super-over as Pakistan managed only 13 and fell short by six runs.

In the group game against India, Netravalkar dismissed both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to make another memorable outing though USA lost the contest by seven wickets. That all his wickets during the World Cup came against Test-playing nations made his achievement even special in USA’s wonderful campaign.

Post the World Cup, the 33-year-old Netravalkar continued in the same vein during the MLC 2024 campaign. He topped the overall bowling charts powering us to our inaugural title in the second edition of MLC this year.

Netravalkar had an excellent outing picking up 15 wickets from just seven matches at an average of 13.46 and picking up a wicket at an astonishing frequency of every 10.53 balls.

The pacer has also delivered for USA in the ODI matches played as part of the ICC Cricket World Cup League 2, the second level of the three-league qualification for the ODI World Cup, this year. In eight matches, Netravalkar has picked up 15 wickets at an average of 22.60 and a strike rate of 28.73. 

Netravalkar, who was born in Mumbai, had turned up for India in the U-19 World Cup in 2010 and was also their highest wicket-taker in the tournament. The pacer made his USA debut in March 2019 and has become the leader of their pace attack with a tally of 124 international wickets from 91 innings, across ODIs and T20Is.

Netravalkar will have a key role to play in USA’s qualification for the next edition of the T20 World Cup and ODI World Cup to be played in 2026 and 2027, respectively.