Varun Aaron - Hidden in pain sight

Injuries aren't the punctuation that help make more sense - not in cricket, surely. They are instead your future at loggerheads with what your present can offer. Who better than Varun Aaron, having made it through seven unfeeling stress fractures, to tell you how difficult it is to be invisible in your own era.

"I wonder about it too," Varun tells Cricbuzz. "Fitness has never been an issue to be honest. Getting injured and being fit are two different things."

Bowling at 153 kph for Jharkhand in the finals of 2010-11 Vijay Hazare Trophy was how Aaron first made headlines. And it had to be fast bowling - that rare, insane kind that redeems for a lifetime of arrears - that could make India look away on the eve of a home World Cup final against Sri Lanka. This kind of pace was unheard of in Indian cricket. Still is, some might argue, but you are only a virgin once.

India now find themselves in the middle of a simmering generation of fast bowlers, when even their traditional strength in batting has found it hard to reconcile with the feeling of coming second. And it's mind-boggling to think that Varun is not in the middle of it all, running in and breathing so heavy and so loud that the world sits up and takes note. Varun instead spends most of his time playing domestic cricket, i.e. when he's not recovering from his latest bout of injury at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.

"I would attribute a lot of my strength and resolve to my injuries," Varun says. "I am blessed to have really good people around. My wife Ragini, my parents, my friends, and even my coaches. At some point, you find that you don't get as much help as you expect from the people around you. A lot of players have experienced that but I am lucky to never have gone through it. I have had a great support system.

"Mental resolve is important but when you have good people around who genuinely care about you, it makes everything a little bit easier."

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"There were Manpreet Gony and others who were huge giants," Varun says about his audition at the MRF Pace Academy as a fifteen-year-old. "I thought to myself that I am never getting in. But I used to bowl quick for my age and it caught TA Sekhar's eye." And Varun's fast-bowling career has taken its own ugly-beautiful course since then.

It must not be easy coming to terms with the the fact that your peak bowling years are interspersed by injuries more than cricket. And the realisation could have potentially shattered a twenty-something, who moved from Jamshedpur to Bengaluru to be nearer to NCA than his dad, who was moving away to Pune. "You don't really want injuries but they do teach you a lot about yourself and about life in general. The guys who have had it easy don't really have to feel the heat, they don't really have to push themselves to the same extent to play the game. I had to dig really deep in the past seven years to get the best out of myself."

Who knows what life could have been had he made that trip to Australia in 2011-12. If only young blood and big dreams had the power to warp your fate into something more meriting. A stress fracture ruled Varun out of that trip to Down Under. He had made his ODI debut just a month ago, coming into the squad as a replacement for Ishant Sharma. And as irony would have it, Ishant made that trip to Australia and Varun didn't. He was out of cricket for nearly two years. "When I went out of the team for my surgery, these guys got a chance and they have done well. They deserve every bit to be there."

"I am not fitter now. I have always been fit," Varun says. "My injuries have been bone related and you can't control them. At least it was comforting when I looked in the mirror because I couldn't really find a fault in my efforts. I felt I had given my 200% and if I got injured, I got injured. I never held back, which I am really happy about. I have never played a match where I have bowled within my 60-70%. Whenever I have played, I have given my 150% and I enjoy doing that."

Varun's injuries, and the harrowing consistency of it, feel like unconstitutional karma. I want to keep bowling fast, he had said in 2011. He came back from his two-year layoff in the 2013-14 Ranji Trophy, still too rebellious to compromise on his pace for the sake of longevity. Then Jharkhand captain Shahbaz Nadeem admitted to "not spotting one or two balls" while fielding at point in their game against Mumbai. And how Varun was even quicker against Karnataka.

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Bowling fast is a mad art. And about wanting to keep bowling fast: let's not attribute to madness that which is explained better by stimulus. "It all started with my dad's stories. He used to boast of his exploits as a fast bowler when he was playing club cricket in Bangalore. He would be saying that he bowled at Andy Roberts' pace. I don't really know if it's close to being true or if he was just making up stories but for a kid, it mattered thinking of his dad running and bowling some crazy bouncers.

"Now it turns out that I am doing the same and my dad is listening to the stories."

One of those stories was on India's 2014 tour of England. Aaron was so fast that Stuart Broad lost his nose and confidence to one wicked bouncer. He walked off the field with two black eyes, had to consult a sport psychologist later and still talks about waking up to nightmares.

"Broad had top-edged me for two sixes before that and I was really angry because you don't want to be hit for two sixes by a tail-ender. I thought I'll give this bouncer everything I have, and I did. What happened was really unfortunate. You don't want to hurt someone that bad but that's how the game is."

Varun was even quicker against Sri Lanka back home, when he clocked 152 kph before a strain in the quadriceps of his right leg forced him off the field after just 4.1 overs in the first ODI. Not that you can blame him - who doesn't want to hear a million gasps for a bouncer instead? - but was Varun paying a price for wanting to continue to bowl?

"I believe in doing things which make you happy. When the ball goes to the keeper above his head and you hear the sound of the ball hit his gloves, it gives me a great satisfaction. The day I can't do that, it'll make me unhappy. I am not here to feed other people or be one of guys who ran the race. That's not the way I think. God has given me the unique ability to bowl quick and you should make the most of it.

"It's never crossed my mind that I had to pay a price for bowling fast. It's not a price. It's a great thing that I can bowl this quick. Not many can. To do it over so many years, despite so many injuries, is not easy but I have really enjoyed doing it."

Varun was back on his feet soon, bowling fast and furious enough to be on that tour of Australia he had missed three years ago. It was a significant moment in his career that promised great returns. Yes, occasionally a little manic with his lines and lengths but he had the pace India wished for every time a big partnership in the past had galloped them and their chances Down Under. He promised a different script. And four wickets in the practice game had India licking their lips, smirking hysterically at changing times.

But Varun had a nightmare in the middle. He conceded runs at a premium of 5.91 in the first innings of the first Test in Adelaide, which scarred Virat Kohli to such an extent that Varun was the sixth bowler into the attack in the second innings, getting the ball after Rohit Sharma had bowled four. It was even worse in the second Test in Brisbane, where Varun conceded runs at a premium of 5.57 and 7.35 in the two innings. He never bowled in the series again.

Left out of the team and overlooked for the 2015 World Cup, Varun met Dennis Lillee on his way back home. It helped that he personally knew Lillee, a Director at the MRF Pace Academy until 2012, and the work they did over a week showed.

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Aaron's most famous moment that didn't injure someone was his delivery to Hashim Amla in Bangalore in 2015. Pitching in line with stumps, moving away and castling the top of off-stump: it was like years of busted magic unfold flawlessly from the P Terrace stands at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. "There was a lot of adrenaline going through. It was a very flat wicket, so I knew I had to bowl a really good ball. it was one of my most memorable wickets. Every bowler likes the top of off-stump." He hit again as recently as last week, plundering a 2-run win for Jharkhand.

Varun's association with Jharkhand isn't a corporate trade. He grew up in Jamshedpur, a city ahead of its times and perhaps the only in all of East India that hasn't bought into the idea of Kolkata and its romanticism. When Kolkata writes poems, Jamshedpur plays.

"Jamshedpur has always been one of those sporting towns of India. I used to go to the JRD Sports Complex to play cricket. My grand-dad used to play hockey, my mom used to play basketball. Whoever I know there plays some spot or the other. So growing up in that atmosphere, I always knew that I had to play town sports.

"I was kicked out of the bed at 5:00 am in the morning. My mom used to give me a glass of milk and a banana, and my dad used to accompany me for early morning runs. My grandfather would often hang around in the practice sessions and advise me. 'What are you doing man? This is not the way you do stuff' he used to say."I couldn't afford to be lazy, which is a great skill to have. I would never be dropped by my parents to school. They wanted me to cycle and be active. All that is helping me now because I have imbibed in the subconscious to work hard and not be lazy."

It's no surprise that Varun, after all that he's endured, feels ready to play for India again. He knows Kohli loves fast bowlers and at 29, it's not too late. His biggest challenge is breaking out of the impression that he's an expensive bowler, playing whom is a plunge into the unknown for the captain. Not only has he been strictly off India's radar, he hasn't been playing for India A too. Add to that he going unsold in the 2018 IPL auctions, evidencing for the hundredth time how stakes for a current India player are higher. IPL bosses cannot fight emotions with a purse and a pair of spreadsheets.

"From all the IPLs I have played, I have had like maybe one off season in 2015, like any other bowler can have," Varun says, defending that he's not a perpetually unreliable bowler, as the world has unfairly come to think of him. "In 2014, I was the highest wicket taker for RCB and in the year previous to that, I did really well for DD.

"Not getting picked at the auctions last time was the biggest blessing in disguise ever because I went to play county cricket for Leicestershire and I feel I have become a different bowler. The kind of insight I got playing county cricket, I'd have never gotten here. I have started to swing the ball both ways. And then the rigours of county cricket teaches you so much. There were times when we played five one-days in a span of nine days at different venues, so you have to change your game plan to suit the wickets and to not suit the opposition. That sort of dynamic you don't get in India. Say you're playing the Vijay Hazare Trophy in Chennai and you're there for a month. You know how each wicket is going to play. You know how each opposition is going to play on it."

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The fact that Varun is able to still bowl quick, pick wickets and harbour hopes of doing better at the upcoming IPL auction is because of the work he has put at the NCA with Subroto Banerjee. Varun has worked on the technicalities of his bowling, improving his run-up and the follow-through, and has even added an inswinger on Subroto's insistence before going off to England for county cricket.

"I have two or three slower balls now. My yorker and bouncer are coming out alright, and I am also swinging the ball. Really looking forward to this IPL because there are a lot more weapons in my armoury, which also counts for being fit for a long time. If I had a lot of injuries, it would give me less time to work on my bowling. But I have been injury-free for a long time and had time to continuously work on my bowling and develop more variations. I feel well-equipped for white-ball cricket.

"In exercises, getting away from heavy core stuff helped me gaining control. I started working more on my posterior chain instead of my anterior chain of muscles. Today it's easier to fix a niggle because I know my body really well. A lot of guys don't know if something happens in the body but it's a lot easier for me."

With an IPL auction round the corner, Varun Aaron might be visible sooner rather than later. Not only was he bowling at 147 kph in the Deodhar Trophy, he had a rewarding Vijay Hazare Trophy too, picking the most number of wickets among the fast bowlers. It's bewildering how motivated he still is. It must not have been easy.

No wonder going to Keenan Stadium in Jamshedpur feels like "going back into a time machine" to him. Now a stranded venue, built way back in 1939 and once the proud home of cricket in Bihar, Keenan is Varun's favourite place in India. He swears by it. And we can see the connection - both trailblazers, both ready, both invisible.