When Indians are very young, they’re told that they can either excel in academics or in sports, but there’s someone who’s managed to do both.
An engineer at Oracle was a part of the USA cricket team that beat Pakistan in a thrilling super over in their T20 World Cup tie. Saurabh Netravalkar is a Member of the Principal Technical Staff at Oracle in the US, and he bowled the final Super Over to restrict Pakistan to just 13. Netravalkar had also had a solid game, giving away only 18 runs in his 4 overs, and bagging two wickets.
It’s no mean feat for someone who also has a full-time engineering job to help beat a top cricket team, but Netravalkar seems to be comfortable straddling both roles. He had been a part of India’s Under 19 cricket setup, and had also played domestic cricket in Mumbai. But he had felt that the competition in India to excel at cricket was too great, and decided to focus on his academics. He graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Mumbai in 2009, and had then moved to the US for higher studies. He’d completed a Masters in Computer Science from Cornell, and finished with a perfect 4.0 GPA.
Netravalkar had also tried to bring together his engineering skills to further his passion for cricket — in 2013, he’d founded a startup called CricDeCode, which allowed hobbyist crickets to maintain a diary of their stats and performances. After graduating from Cornell, Netravalkar joined Oracle as a Member of its Technical Staff in 2016, and in 2018 was promoted to a Senior Member of Technical Staff. In 2022, he was again promoted to become a Principal Member of the Technical staff. More impressively, all this while Netravalkar was also playing cricket for the US national team, and helped it win several matches on the way to the world cup.
Now after his heroics in the T20 win against Pakistan, even his employer has lauded his achievements at cricket. “Congrats @USACricket on a historic result! Proud of the team and our very own engineering and cricket star Saurabh Netravalkar,” Oracle’s official account posted on X. Managing a tech role in the US while also playing cricket — and beating Pakistan to boot — Saurabh Netravalkar seems to be living every Indian’s dream.