“I used to work in Ghaziabad and train in Delhi. Going up and down from Ghaziabad to Delhi took almost 4 hours one way, so 7-8 hours used to go wasted there. I used to do a night-shift job as well at a factory. The factory used to grease the ball bearings used in cars which would then be imported. So after working the night shift I went to play in the morning and whatever I slept was in the bus only. I did this for a year.”

Every edition of the IPL throws up a story. 2022 was Kumar Kartikeya’s. From a net bowler in the Mumbai Indians’ camp, to coming into the main squad of 25 as an injury replacement for his fellow MP bowler, Arshad Khan, to finding a spot in the playing XI almost immediately, to impressing with his bag of tricks, to eventually winning everybody over multiple times with his heartwarming backstory.

“I mean, the way I had got in the team last year, I did not have much hope. There was just a one percent chance when Rahul (Sanghvi) sir called me for net bowling,” Kartikeya said in an exclusive chat with mumbaiindians.com. “So I came with the thought that whatever happens, at least I’ll get to learn. I did not come with the intention of getting in the team. I was like, ‘If I bowl to players who have international caliber, that’ll give me an idea on how to improve my bowling’. So I did that just as a means to learn. I wanted to excel here and learn as much as I could from players and the coaches, who themselves were pretty great players.”

Let’s rewind a bit. Kartikeya’s story of him leaving home to pursue cricket is well documented. At 16, all alone, he moved to Delhi after giving his father a vow that he wouldn’t return unless he’d made it big. What began was a year of constant struggle. He stayed in Ghaziabad, trained in Delhi in the morning, worked in a car factory in the night, slept during his travel, and survived on biscuits for lunch.

That’s when coach Sanjay Bharadwaj stepped in, got Kartikeya a room with his cook (which took care of his lunches, and more importantly, gave him a bed better than the ones on buses to sleep on). It allowed him to quit his night job. Oh, also, just the other privilege of training with the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Nitish Rana, Unmukt Chand, Joginder Sharma and Amit Mishra.

“Bahut mushkil tha (It was very difficult). I mean I was away from my family, add to that I had to pay bills out of my pocket for food, rent, etc.. So for the first year it was a big struggle. But I never thought of leaving everything and going back home. I was like, ‘now that I have left home and come, I have to do something’. And I had a clear mindset that since I wanted to be a cricketer, Cricketer toh banunga (I’ll become a cricketer), any means necessary,” he said.

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“I was watching Mujeeb (Ur Rahman) bowl the carrom ball in an Afghanistan match. And when they played the slow motion replay on TV, I took videos of it on my phone to see how the bowler placed his fingers. I learnt the wrong ‘un from Akila Dananjaya. He used to bowl both off-spin and leg-spin and I used to observe where he placed his fingers. Also there was Rangana Herath, used to follow him as well so just, some good things from everyone. I used to think what would happen if I did this, did that.”

In red ball cricket, Kartikeya is one of those classical left-arm spinners. But paint the ball white, and out come the leg-break, the googly, the carrom ball, and every variation possible. He’d done so well to hide the fact that he’d developed these in his armoury that it was only after watching him bowl on television that Madhya Pradesh’s coach Chandrakant Pandit got to know of his variations.

“The challenge was getting a style in which I could bowl any variation using the same action. And that was very difficult for me, getting a grip that I could use for bowling leg-spin, off-spin or carrom balls. My concern was that even if I bowl these variations and the batsman can see it, then there's no point. So I had to keep my action the same, release point the same so that I could trouble the batsmen,” he said.

Talking about troubling batters, Suryakumar Yadav wasn’t among those to be troubled in the nets. In fact, Kartikeya admits, SKY just kept reading them. And even when he didn’t, he ended up smashing them nevertheless.

“Currently my only plan for him is since he reads my deliveries so easily, I’ll play mind games with him. First I tried using variations, but now I’ll be using mind games against him.”

That’s Kumar Kartikeya for you - hardened by his journey, grateful in equal measure, self-taught and street smart.