During his junior cricket days, Amit Mishra used to quietly watch teammate Bhuvaneshwar Kumar bowl. Like a batsman he would observe his wrist position and release of deliveries while at mid-off. Little did he know then that those minor points he had picked up would one day come in handy and instead of his dream of opening the batting, would turn him into a medium pacer.

Over the years pacers in UP have been more or less self-taught. Without proper coaching, they have depended on their seniors and counterparts to hone their skills. For 23-year-old Mishra, it’s the same story.

“Me and Bhuvi played under-17 and under-19 together for UP. I used to be an opening batsman and part-time bowler. I always used to stand at mid-off and watch closely how Bhuvi would bowl, his wrist position, his landing. I used to follow PK (Praveen Kumar) bhai as well. I would then try those things while bowling,” Mishra recalls.

It was during an under-17 game that he was asked to bowl one change and Mishra says he has always managed to get important breakthroughs. Since then he was considered as a bowling all-rounder. Recently he hogged the limelight with a match-winning 6 for 29 against Madhya Pradesh which helped UP gain outright win in their opening Ranji Trophy game in Indore.

Like most of his counterparts, Mishra might not explain the method of his bowling but enough homework has gone into getting his landing right. At the nets he still observes Praveen and RP Singh bowl from close quarters. He picks up a few points from them and at times discusses certain issues with UP coach Venkatesh Prasad.

“I can swing but at the same time I can manage to get some movement from the seam. The important thing is to get the off-stump line right and for the rest just keep things tight,” he points out. Out of those six wickets against MP, Mishra got four of them caught behind, one bowled and one at slips.

UP has found another swing boy and one who can get some movement from the seam. Captain Piyush Chawla feels Mishra’s biggest advantage is that even he doesn’t know which ball will move after landing. It creates doubt on the batsman’s mind and that is the reason he has become so successful in such a short time.

TOUGH TIMES

Looking back, Mishra can’t forget those tough times. Once his father, a railway employee in Kanpur, had to borrow cricket gear to make sure his son gets to play the game. His first big challenge was the under-15 trials at Green Park and he remembers how nearly 1,200 players had turned up. “1,200 mein se 100 toh ache he honge na. The atmosphere was so frightening, you see your competitors everywhere. I was picked as a batsman. I remember scoring 50 in the first practice game,” he recalls.

Then came the reality check. A series of poor performances during his under-17 days nearly derailed his cricket career as Mishra thought of quitting the game altogether. The following year he was not picked for the under-17 side. During his turmoil it was his father who egged him on to play cricket.

Soon he was back as an all-rounder and it was during an under-25 game that Venkatesh Prasad saw him. Next he was in the UP team for the Vijay Hazare Trophy and late last year made his Ranji Trophy debut. In his first Ranji game against Tamil Nadu, he got the important wickets of Murali Vijay and Dinesh Karthik.

Mishra has a long way to go. With RP Singh getting injured on eve of the game against Mumbai and chinaman Kuldeep Yadav unavailable after he got hit on thumb, a lot will depend on Praveen and Mishra. It is at the Green Park stadium in Kanpur that Mishra had began his cricketing career, and it is here that he would hope to make that next big jump.