Vikram Raj Vir Singh (born 17 September 1984), commonly known as VRV Singh, is a former Indian
cricketer
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
who was a member of the
Indian cricket team
The India men's national cricket team, also known as Team India or the Men in Blue, represents India in men's international cricket. It is governed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), and is a Full Member of the International ...
. He is a right-arm fast-medium
bowler. He is considered one of the few genuine fast bowlers India has produced over the last decade.
After being called into the Indian squad to play
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
in 2005, he failed a fitness test and was promptly dropped. He finally played his first
One Day International
A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...
against
England at
Jamshedpur
Jamshedpur (, ) or Tatanagar is the largest and most populous city in Jharkhand and the first planned industrial city in India. It is a Notified Area Council and Municipal Corporation and also the headquarter of the East Singhbhum district. It ...
. He debuted in
Tests
Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to:
* Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
Arts and entertainment
* ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film
* ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
against the
West Indies in June 2006. In March 2019, he announced his retirement from cricket.
In August 2019, BCCI formed a separate cricket association for
Chandigarh and named it
Union Territory Cricket Association
The Union Territory Cricket Association is the governing body of the cricket in the Union Territory of Chandigarh in India and the Chandigarh cricket team. Since August 2019, UTCA got affiliated to the Board of Control for Cricket in India foll ...
. VRV Singh was named as the coach of the team.
Early life
Singh was born in
Chandigarh in
Punjab,
India. He has always been a fast bowler and has compromised his accuracy for extra pace. He debuted for the
Punjab in 2003/04
Ranji Trophy
The Ranji Trophy (also known as Mastercard Ranji Trophy for sponsorship reasons) is a domestic first-class cricket championship played in India between multiple teams representing regional and state cricket associations. Board of Control for Cr ...
season and continues to play
first class cricket for Punjab. According to the former coach of Punjab, Bhupinder Singh Senior, "All he wants to do is bowl fast, nothing else matters to him". He played for India in the
Under-19 Cricket World Cup in 2004 but disappointed with the ball, going for an expensive 44 runs in five overs in his only match. He later received the Border-Gavaskar scholarship which allowed him to train in cricket academies in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. His fellow scholarship holder,
R. P. Singh
Rudra Pratap Singh (born 17 December 2007) is an Indian former cricketer, who played for the India national cricket team in Test, One Day International and Twenty20 International cricket as a left arm fast-medium bowler. In September 2018, he ...
, also later went on to play for India.
Domestic career
Singh began his domestic career with the Punjab cricket team in the Limited Overs version of the Ranji Trophy. He played only one match and went wicketless. However, when he made his debut for Punjab in the first class version of the Trophy, he averaged 21.00 over his 6 matches and took 30 wickets. However, he was still unimpressive in ODIs, averaging 109.00 over 4 matches. Despite this, he was selected for the Indian ODI squad against Sri Lanka after playing only 5 ODIs for his state, but was sent back to the domestic circuit after failing a fitness test. He improved his performance in the 2005–06 ODI Ranji Trophy season, averaging 20.75 over his 4 matches, which included a 4 wicket haul.
Singh impressed many in the
Challenger Trophy with his pace, which was the quickest of the tournament. He played for India A and while he picked up few wickets, he was referred to as the "fastest bowler in India" by
VVS Laxman and "the quickest around at present" by
Javagal Srinath
Javagal Srinath, (, born 31 August 1969) is a former Indian cricketer and currently an ICC match referee. He is considered among India's finest fast bowlers, and was the first Indian fast bowler to take more than 300 wickets in One Day Inter ...
.
He also impressed West Indian pace bowling great
Ian Bishop, who believed he was improving with every game and developing into a good fast bowling prospect for India.
International career
Singh was selected to play against England as part of the Indian Board President's XI team in the England's tour of India in the
2006 season, and made his
ODI
ODI may refer to:
* Object Design, Incorporated, a defunct database software company
* One Day International, cricket match
* Open Data Institute, a UK not-for-profit company promoting open data
* Open Data-Link Interface, an implementation of th ...
debut for India later in the series. He then played England again at
Indore in the same series. He has since been left out of the ODI team due to the presence of
Munaf Patel and
Irfan Pathan. He did not get any wickets during his two one-day matches.
He made his Test debut against the West Indies in West Indies, taking two wickets. He has also played two tests against
South Africa, in which he has achieved 2 more wickets.
Injury and comeback
Injuries took a toll on VRV Singh's body and he could not play a domestic match for Punjab from 2008 to 2012, although he played few IPL matches for Kings XI Punjab. He had to go through the complete process from Nets to Clubs to State team again. He made his T20 comeback vs Assam in March 2012.
He played five T20s and disappeared again. One and a half years later, he made his First-Class comeback after five years vs Haryana in November 2013 and took a 5-wicket haul in 1st Innings.
Coaching career
In August 2019, BCCI formed a separate cricket association for
Chandigarh and named it
Union Territory Cricket Association
The Union Territory Cricket Association is the governing body of the cricket in the Union Territory of Chandigarh in India and the Chandigarh cricket team. Since August 2019, UTCA got affiliated to the Board of Control for Cricket in India foll ...
. VRV Singh was named as the coach of the team.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, V.R.V.
Indian cricketers
India Test cricketers
India One Day International cricketers
Punjab, India cricketers
1984 births
Living people
Cricketers from Chandigarh
North Zone cricketers
Punjab Kings cricketers
India Red cricketers