5 min readChennaiUpdated: May 19, 2026 08:37 PM IST
As the news of his son Manav being called up to India’s Test squad against Afghanistan reached him, tears welled up in Jagdish Suthar’s eyes.
Overcome with emotion, he sobs uncontrollably as his wife takes over the phone.
“He is very strong usually, but this moment is very emotional,” she says. When Jagdish takes back the phone, he conveys the enormity of the occasion. “This was a life-long dream.A lot of hard work has gone into it. Very happy.”
The story of the Suthars is similar to most father-son tales in Indian cricket. During his younger days, cricket meant everything to Jagdish, who couldn’t get beyond the school-level. When Manav showed interest in the game, it was a no-brainer.
“I didn’t push him…he had interest in cricket, so at 11, I put him in an academy,” Jagdish, who works as a physical education teacher at a school at Sriganganagar, a small town five km from Pakistan border in Rajasthan, says.
Bowling left-arm spin, though, wasn’t in Jagdish’s mind. “I wanted him to become a batsman. But his coach (Dheeraj Sharma) told me on the first day of training that my son is made for bowling.”
Manav has been on the selectors’ radar ever since he was summoned to India’s preparatory camp for the 2023 World Cup. Even before he joined the camp in Bengaluru, there was plenty of hype around him. At the camp, as he troubled the likes of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, it was evident that the hype was understandable.
The common acknowledgment among the senior players during that camp was that if he could manage to get drift with the white ball, he could do wonders with the red ball.
In the lead-up to Tuesday’s team selection, the Suthar household had been anxious. At a time when players active in the Indian Premier League hog the limelight, there were some who opined that Manav wasn’t made for the top level, as he had spent the entire 2025 season on the Gujarat Titans bench and had played only four fixtures this season.
Even when he toured the UK as part of the India A squad in 2025, opportunities eluded him. In last year’s Duleep Trophy too, he carried the drinks for Central Zone, which preferred Saransh Jain and Harsh Dubey. The story was no different last September, as Dubey and Tanush Kotian were the chosen ones against Australia A.
Breakthrough
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It was in this backdrop that Manav got drafted into India A XI for the second Test against Australia A last year, when he picked up five wickets to prove his credentials.
“He was actually very nervous,” his coach Dheeraj Sharma says. “He was not getting opportunities anywhere. At Gujarat Titans, he had Sai Kishore ahead of him. When there was talk about not getting an IPL game, I kept telling him that ‘If you play for India, it will be with the red ball. They will hand over the red ball to you one day and when that happens, never let it go’. He is made for Test cricket.”
That observation is largely diwn to his skillset.
“He is built in a classical mould. He is not someone who will bowl with a flat trajectory. He has an action and a release perfect for a left-arm spinner. Be it bowling speeds, variations or efficiency in terms of constantly asking questions, he has it in him. Even though he hasn’t got any game time in the IPL, I tell him to use the two months to learn how to prepare and read the game,” Dheeraj says.
At a time when India’s spin bowling resources are thin, the selectors haven’t just gone by numbers. Playing for Rajasthan, which hasn’t got beyond the group stages in recent years, means opportunities have been few. In 29 first-class outings, Manav has picked up 129 wickets at 25.76 – not eye-popping numbers by any means – but what has got many excited about the 23-year-old are the traits that Dheeraj listed out.
“He thinks like a Test match bowler. From a young age, he understood the value of bowling dot balls. He is a firm believer that a set of dot balls will lead to the batter making a mistake. To bowl dot balls, one needs to be consistent with the line. He is not a finished product, but if groomed, will serve you for long.”
