There have been big changes in Indian cricket in the last 25 years. Over the years, cricket has moved out of big cities and reached small towns and villages, from where many big players have emerged. Especially after the start of IPL, there has been a revolution on this front. IPL teams have on their own given many such players to Indian cricket, who were hidden or would have remained hidden. Rajasthan Royals did something similar, which has given Indian cricket a new star like Vaibhav Suryavanshi. But the one who took Vaibhav here was Samar Qadri, a former cricketer, who first recognized Vaibhav and then turned him towards Rajasthan.
Vaibhav surprised the whole world by hitting a six on the very first ball of his first match of IPL 2025. Vaibhav had achieved this amazing feat at the age of just 14. But after that, for the next one year and then in the IPL 2026 season, Vaibhav has defeated the bowlers of international level in the country and abroad. The talent of Vaibhav himself, the passion of his parents, the role of coach Manish Ojha and the coaching staff of Rajasthan Royals have been discussed in taking Vaibhav to this point, but the contribution of Samar Qadri in this cannot be ignored.
Former leg spinner of Bihar cricket team, Samar Qadri has been associated with Rajasthan Royals as a scout for the last 3-4 years. He searches for players from small towns for Rajasthan and he did the same thing with Vaibhav Suryavanshi. 36-year-old Samar, resident of Patna, has been a part of Jharkhand and Bihar cricket team from 2009 to 2021. Samar made his debut for Jharkhand in 2009 and after playing for this team for a few years, he turned to Bihar. In his first class career, this leg spinner took 157 wickets in 45 matches, while he took 19 wickets in 18 List-A matches and 14 wickets in 17 T20 matches.
But how did Samar Qadri find glory and bring it to Rajasthan? The scout of Rajasthan Royals revealed this in an interview. He told that when Vaibhav was only 11-12 years old, he had heard about this little boy for the first time. Then one day both of them faced each other in a local match in Patna and here Vaibhav scored a century in about 50 balls. During this period, he also scored runs on summer balls. After this, he played one or two more matches and he understood that Vaibhav is not an ordinary or talented cricketer.
Soon Vaibhav also got a place in Bihar’s Ranji team. During this time, he talked about Vaibhav to Rajasthan Royals’ High Performance Director Zubin Bharucha and Samar told him what a tremendous batsman this kid is. Only after this, Vaibhav was called for the trials in Rajasthan and everything changed from here. Samar told that when he reached for the trials, Vaibhav hit 3 sixes in a row in the first 3 balls and this surprised everyone. After that he was selected and the whole world has seen what happened from the auction to his IPL debut.
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