Who is Mukesh Kumar, the newbie in India's ODI squad for the South Africa Series?

India sprung an interesting surprise by handing Bengal seamer Mukesh Kumar a maiden call-up into their ODI squad on Sunday (October 2) evening. 

Kumar got a nod of approval into an alternate 50-over side that will be led by Shikhar for the three ICC Super League games against South Africa, with T20 World Cup incumbents missing. 

The right-arm seamer is the only pacer part of the squad for the Proteas challenge not have played for the country before in any form of the game, making him a latest inclusion to the set-up. 

Notably, Kumar's selection has come to light despite an unimpressive List A record to his name. The bowler averages 44 for his 18 wickets taken from 17 one-day outings at the domestic level so far, carrying an economy rate of 5.17. He took 7 wickets in five games during the last season's Vijay Hazare Trophy but his scalps came at an expensive economy rate of 5.53. 

The pacer's claim to the India squad has been empowered purely through his strong first-class performances. Making his competitive red-ball debut back in 2015 for Bengal, Mukesh Kumar is averaging 22.50 for his 109 first-class wickets from 30 matches. 

The seamer was critical to Bengal's run until the final of the Ranji Trophy 2019-20, where he bagged 32 wickets from 10 matches at 22.40 per piece to emerge as his team's stand-out performer with the ball. 

The pacer has continued his rise since the end of the pandemic break, taking 20 wickets from 5 matches when the Ranji Trophy returned after a Covid halt last year. He backed up with nine scalps, including a five-fer, in India A series against a visiting New Zealand team and took an impressive 4/22 in the first-innings of the Irani Trophy against Saurashtra. 

The four-fer in Rajkot reinforced Kumar as a bowler of utmost discipline and incisiveness with the red ball outside the off-stump and came with chief selector Chetan Sharma watching in the stands. Impressed by the seamer's red-ball exploits, Sharma decided to introduce him into the white-ball set-up. 

Who is Mukesh Kumar? 

Mukesh Kumar has been an integral part of Bengal's team across formats, a place of incumbency that he has earned through performances after being spotted by Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) during their ambitious 'Vision 2020' project that was aimed at identifying the state's best young talent and to win the Ranji Trophy with it. 

That title remained elusive despite Kumar's best of efforts over the previous two editions of India's premier domestic first-class competition. But Bengal can take heart from Kumar's emergence through the ladder as a sign of their project bearing all the right fruits. 

The seamer is a protagonist of an interesting story from one of the camps organised by CAB as part of 'Vision 2020'. "I saw him in the Vision 2020 nets with no spikes, in his trainers. Just roaming around," recalled Ranadep Bose, the former Bengal seamer and one of the coaches involved in the project, to ESPNcricinfo. 

"When I saw him bowl, I thought there was something (about him). Waqar (Younis, Pakistan legend and fast-bowling consultant for the project) was not 100% okay with that, but I requested him, 'bhai, rakh lo (let's keep him)'. He said, 'tere ko lag raha hai? Toh rakh. Tu sure hai? (You think so? Then keep him. Are you sure?)' And I said, 'mere ko achha lag raha hai(I like him)'." 

Destiny favoured Mukesh as Bose got the chance to have a closer look at the seamer's talent and promise while on a tea break from his coaching and scouting duties. Bose saw something that Waqar didn't, in that while Kumar came across as a steady customer who seemingly operated around 120-130 kph only, in reality, he extracted skid off the surface that would go on to trouble many domestic batters when combined with lateral movement. 

"At the fag end of a long day, maybe even I could have missed him. But I just happened to go behind the nets to have a cup of tea. So I was able to watch him from behind the batsman. From far, he looked like he was 120kph, but off the pitch, there was skid."

"The loss of pace seemed less after hitting the deck. So I thought, there is something. I gave him a better ball, then he started bowling better. So after going back and forth, I picked him and Waqar nodded finally. I was lucky to be at the right place at the right time," Bose said. 

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Bose got Waqar to agree to pick Mukesh Kumar and the next season he was hitting the delivery stride in first-class cricket for Bengal. The fairytale, however, came to an abrupt halt when Mukesh was found to be anaemic by the team doctors and physios, who spotted the root cause of the seamer getting tired not too long into his spells. Ultimately, Kumar was diagnosed with bone edema, a condition borne out of the accumulation of fluids in his knees. 

"Mukesh was suffering from malnutrition. His body wasn't ready to play 10-12 first-class games a season, and it has taken us a good three years to set him right - to get his training, food habits, sleep patterns in order," said Bose, who remember requesting the then CAB president Sourav Ganguly to keep Kumar in the set-up despite his condition, with the former India skipper aggreeing for the state association pays for all his expenses. 

The idea was for Kumar to be in a ripe shape to last through a season, a transition that Bose oversaw with honest commitment. The transformation truly kicked in ahead of the 2019-20 season when the pacer helped almost pull off Bengal's first-ever Ranji Trophy title. Mukesh Kumar hasn't looked back since.