Bring Me Ayan Desai

Seattle's young lefty is a critical piece for the USA's future in all formats

For all its faults and criticisms, I genuinely enjoy Major League Cricket. It's doing so much for the sport in the US that USAC does not have the resources to accomplish on its own, including an opportunity for elite American players to sharpen their skills against players from ICC Full Members, be they established vets of the US national team setup or our best and brightest young men in the game stepping up in weight class.

There are simply no two ways around it: the United States is on the rise in global cricket. MLC is the shaft of the spear, driving home the sharp end - the repeated success of the men's national team. While many people deserve credit for that on-field success, both players and coaches, Saurabh Netravalkar has ascended to the closest thing an associate cricketer can have to true stardom.

It's not hard to see why. Pacers make sexy headlines and highlight reels. Bumrah, Siraj, Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood... there is a reason you have to go a long, long way down to find a spinner on r/DeathRattlePorn (it's Muralitharan as of this writing). They are typically a team's best and most explosive athletes, and good pace is still the most effective way to prevent runs and get wickets. Their personalities, body language, and mechanics are analyzed relentlessly as they seek to hit a target the size of a pinhead with an extremely hard ball roughly the size of a nice tomato and then exercise control over that tomato to make it bounce off the ground just right.

Netravalkar is that guy for the USA; his day job at Oracle added to the mystique, but bowling in the low 80s and taking the wickets of Rizwan, Kohli, and Rohit was what drove the fanfare and made the efforts of a deep batting lineup stand up long enough to get the USA into the Super 8 and the next World T20. He is the only American bowler to take 100 ODI wickets and will soon be the first to take 50 T20 wickets. He is that dude right now.

He also turns 34 in October, which is typically not a great time to be a pace bowler.

Father Time waits for no man and he is particularly impatient with the quicks, and it make sense given the enormous physical demands of the role. Even Dale Steyn lost a step after 33. Spinners can still be impactful well into their late 30s and sometimes even early 40s because it's less demanding on the body, but pacers need the speed of the run up, the torque of the shoulder, and all the things that go with being at their physical peak. Once it's gone, it's gone, and you're target practice.

So, enter 21 year old southpaw Ayan Desai.

As the future core of the men's national team takes shape, with Saiteja Mukkamalla destined to lead in lockstep with Sanjay Krishnamurthi and with Yasir Mohammad growing with lots of runway in a deep platoon of spinners, there is a clear gap in the growth of the fast bowling attack that has left a big distance between Netravalkar and the second option, Jessy Singh, and an even bigger gap to third option Shadley van Schalkwyk, who turns 37 in August. That gap became very obvious during the recent CWC2 tri-series with Canada and Oman down at Lauderhill, where Monank's only choice for an extra pacer was van Schalkwyk. It didn't go well. These are the figures from that trilateral series:

Saurabh Netravalkar 35.1-2-143-8 (4.07 econ, 17.88 avg)
Jessy Singh 35.0-0-217-8 (6.50 econ, 27.13 avg)
Shadley van Schalkwyk 4.0-0-37-0 (9.25 econ, INF avg)

... and the pace numbers aren't really much different over a longer sample size. The below is the entirety of US fast bowlers in ODI action since September 2024:

Netravalkar (15 matches) 139.3-14-561-27 (4.02 econ, 20.78 avg)
Singh (14 matches, bowled in 13) 103.2-1-642-21 (6.21 econ, 30.57 avg)
van Schalkwyk (9 matches) 61.0-3-375-9 (6.15 econ, 41.67 avg)
Juanoy Drysdale (2 matches) 9.0-2-33-2 (3.67 econ, 16.50 avg)

These four also comprise the majority of T20 overs of pace, with spot work for Ali Khan and Stephen Wiig in Oman and for Desai (three matches) and teenager Aarin Nadkarni (one match) in the North American Cup down in the Cayman Islands in April.

Desai's numbers in George Town were also quite strong: 9.0-11-59-5, with a 6.56 economy and a terrific 11.8 average that was only slightly skewed by his two overs in the Bahamas rout early in the tournament. That's a nice rebound after he took it on the chin in his T20I debut in Windhoek, and it's more in line with the young bowler we saw get Devon Conway out for a platinum duck and later get Marcus Stoinis to hole out to long off in his debut with the Seattle Orcas last summer.

Now we’re into MLC 2025, and it took all of one innings with the bat to deduce that the Orcas are terrible. With Farooqi and Gulbadin on TBD arrival schedules, Shayan Jahangir banged up, and the middle order ranging from an out of form Aaron Jones to whatever Sikandar Raza was doing against Washington, this is clearly headed for the “bust” end of the boom/bust spectrum. (Waqar Salamkheil looked great on Saturday in garbage time, though, so the spinners might end up okay.) They need a jolt, and they need to double down on the players that can most impact their future… like Ayan Desai.

Valid arguments exist that he may not be ready because he still needs to add strength (and thus pace, currently bowling in the upper 70s), but that’s more pertinent in the 50-over game than T20, and being ready to contribute and being a finished product are two different things. Other options could come onto the field as well as the likes of Calvin Savage and Corne Dry hit the ICC’s residency requirements, but these are short-term solutions at best. Having Desai not only around MLC but also around the national team setup more frequently puts him in position to do the conditioning necessary to build that strength and fitness on the fly with good coaching to ensure no bad habits emerge in the process. If he shows form, he could force USAC’s hand on getting him into the squad more frequently.

Desai is the US’ most advanced pace prospect, but he is not the only pace prospect. I’m a big fan of Arya Garg; he was one of the few bright spots at the U19 World Cup in 2024, taking 8 wickets for a respectable 24 average as a 16 year old in four matches in South Africa. Nadkarni is a second-generation American cricketer who has shown promise. Rushil Ugarkar flashed raw tools in a bit part with MI New York late last season, and there is still some hope for Abhishek Paradkar to figure it out at 24.

The USA is getting these results with one really good pacer. Imagine them with two.

You may not have to imagine much longer.

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Thanks for reading Stumps & Stripes, where I share my thoughts on domestic cricket in the United States! I’m excited to get this new venture off the ground and build an audience for what I have to say. Coverage will be heavy on MLC to start as the season is ongoing. Check out this piece I wrote on Nicholas Pooran’s nascent captaincy with New York and the immediate pressure he faces.

Coming up this week, my first batch of MLC power rankings, plus the impact of Saiteja Mukkamalla’s breakthrough success with the national team and thoughts on associate cricket as a whole as the United States sits top of the table during a wildly entertaining Cricket World Cup League 2 cycle.