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IPL 2017: From nowhere to millionaire is Aniket Choudhary's story

Choudhary was bowling to the Indians before the New Zealand series for Virat Kohli and Co to counter the Kiwi left-arm pacers Trent Boult and Neil Wagner

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RCB’s Aniket Choudhary celebrates Parthiv Patel’s wicket in Mumbai
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The tall Rajasthan left-arm speedster Aniket Choudhary was frank to admit that the IPL contract he got for the current season was the biggest gain by bowling to the Indian Test players earlier in the year.

Choudhary was bowling to the Indians before the New Zealand series for Virat Kohli and Co to counter the Kiwi left-arm pacers Trent Boult and Neil Wagner. He continued to impress the Indians at the nets prior the one-off Test in Bangladesh in Hyderabad in February. Only a week later was the IPL auction in which he was bid fiercely before RCB wrapped him up.

Asked what he gained the most by bowling to the Indian Test batsmen, the 28-year-old said "Rs 2 crore IPL contract," bursting into laughter.

On a serious note, he said: "It (bowling in the India nets) was a very good experience. If you are bowling to top Indian batsmen and getting them out, that's where I got noticed by Virat that I am from Rajasthan and I am bowling well. Once you bowl to the best and get them out, I don't think there is a better way of gaining confidence than that. After that, whichever domestic competition you go, like when I played Ranji Trophy, I was very confident. It appeared a lot easier then."

Chaudhary, who finished with 1/32 in his four overs, bowled the 18th over when Mumbai Indians needed 30 off the last three. After five tight deliveries, he was smacked for a six by Hardik Pandya over mid-wicket. He was advised against bowling a slower one by South African great AB de Villiers, who ran in from long-on to the bowler.

Chaudhary said: "In the last training session, I was practicing with AB and he said I was bowling really well. He was backing me from the first ball. As far as the last ball was concerned, I was wondering whether to bowl him (Hardik) the slower one or the fast one. Maybe it was a match-changing point. So I went to AB and asked him 'what should I bowl?' He said 'maybe he's ready for the slower one, so I think you should go with the hard length.' And when someone as great as AB tells you to do something, it's very hard to go against it. And I thought he was right. And, Virat (at long off) wasn't happy with what I bowled. He thought I did the wrong thing and I should have bowled full and slow."

Enjoying the experience of IPL, Chaudhary said about RCB's luck: "Maybe bad luck… Things didn't go our way."

'Can't take last four league games lightly'

Mumbai Indians leg-spinner Karn Sharma, who bowled a tidy 3-0-23-1 against Royal Challengers Bangalore on Monday, said that his team cannot be complacent in the remaining four league games.

MI, with 16 points from 10 games, have already qualified for the play-offs. Sharma said: "We have qualified but we cannot take lightly our last four matches. We have to take that momentum into the knock-outs," said Karn, who replaced Harbhajan for this game.

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