Swapnil Asnodkar
Teams: Goa and Rajasthan Royals
Audacious—trust Shane Warne to go sniffing for that strain, and find it bursting out of the shortest member of his ragtag bunch. Swapnil Asnodkar, rising barely 5 ft from the ground, was plucked from the pool of little-known players at Jaipur and planted into the opening slot, replacing seasoned Pakistani Kamran Akmal against the Kolkata Knight Riders. The 24-year-old from Goa responded with a 34-ball 60, smacking three consecutive boundaries off Ajit Agarkar to make a statement of intent.
Sprinting alongside the burly Graeme Smith, the opener followed that up with two quickfire 30s, the impact of his brazen pulls and upper-cuts over slip making a far more potent impression than the scores suggest.
But far from being an adventurous run-maker on the domestic circuit, Asnodkar had created a stir in his home state Goa for piling up 254, the highest score for the minnows of the Plate Division. The chanceless knock, remembered for Asnodkar’s early reading of the ball and fluent strokes, proved his quality and not his flair for innovation.
Now nicknamed ‘Goa Cannon’, Asnodkar found in Warne a captain willing to encourage his chutzpah. “He’s very attacking and can play shots all around the wicket,” says former player Abey Kuruvilla, who first witnessed Asnodkar’s daredevilry with the DY Patil squad in Mumbai.
While Warne had worked closely with the Goan for two weeks at Jaipur before he made his IPL debut, Asnodkar is known to have benefited more from the pool-side talks Warne gave when holidaying during the team’s break in Goa. Assistant coach Darren Berry has termed Asnodkar the team’s biggest revelation. “We love the way he handles himself out there,” Berry says.
— Shivani Naik

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