Amit Mishra’s name was scratched, and Aavishkar Salvi’s scribbled on the player sheet just before the toss for the shortened game against Punjab. Opening the attack from the Kevin Grove end, it was an emotional moment for the Mumbaikar in the Delhi Daredevils team. It had been six years — after he turned his arm over against Australia in Kolkata in 2003 — since he had made an appearance on an international stage.

But there is even more to Salvi and this IPL. In the midst of all the Glenn McGrath worshippers across the eight teams, Salvi is the original clone. Or at least that’s what Bishen Bedi and Dilip Vengsarkar had said when he had first started out, and he earned an India cap primarily because his action and length resembled McGrath’s. The consistency, however, was missing.

Salvi never made it to the tour of Australia, injured at the last minute, and spent a long time in rehab for two shoulder injuries and a back problem. Ironically, he even remodeled his action, and looking very different from McGrath now, he finds himself in the same squad as his inspiration. McGrath knows that Salvi was his bowling lookalike, and that has only increased his desire to help him mould a career in the IPL.

Salvi smiles at the twists and turns in his story. “It was a perception that I was like McGrath. I never had any such illusions. Just because my old action was similar to his doesn’t mean I was like him. I know that I got a lot of attention because of that. McGrath’s my idol, I watched him on TV when I started playing. At least I finally got to meet him, even though my action no longer looks like his,” he says.

... contd.