Navdeep Poonia
Navdeep Singh Poonia (born 11 May 1986) is a Scottish cricket player. He is a right-handed batsman and right-arm medium fast bowler. He has played his first one one-day international for Scotland against Ireland on 5 August 2006.He also made three Twenty20 appearances for Warwickshire in 2006 season.He plays for Warwickshire in English county cricket.Poonia scored a half-century on his C&G Trophy debut in June,2006.He was named in a 14-man squad for the visit of Inzamam-ul-Haq's star-studded outfit for the historic one day match against Pakistan but at the last moment,Warwickshire refused to release him.Because,Mark Greatbatch,the coach of Warwickshire required Poonia for Warwickshire's Twenty/20 Cup clash at Northants. In this way,he is the victim of his own success.
"If someone had said to me at the start of the summer that I'd be scoring runs for Warwickshire, making my One Day International debut and with the chance of going to the World Cup next year, I'd have taken it," Poonia admits. "I was a bit disappointed when I couldn't play against Pakistan . The rules then meant that if Warwickshire needed me, then that took priority. Then a week later, they changed the regulations. Ireland won't be as glamorous as Pakistan. But I'm still really looking forward to it."
His path to pulling on a Scotland jersey has been littered with many an obstacle. It was Warwickshire's tartan export Dougie Brown who first brought notice of Poonia's origins to then Under-19 national coach Peter Drinnen. A spot in the under-age World Cup was offered but then withdrawn because of the rules which put residency and education over birth place. Having withdrawn those parameters, the route was clear for him to become a fully-fledged Saltire and with a top order place firmly up for grabs, he could easily find his way in the party which will head for the Caribbean next spring.
Observers of Poonia's game consider him a highly capable shot maker, inventive but not reckless. He concedes that at one day level he has much still to learn. "I think playing for Scotland will help me mentally most of all. Technically I can always look to improve but this will be a different standard of bowling.I do have one eye on playing for England in the future," he reveals. "But it's a long way off. I have a lot to do with Scotland first and a lot of improvement to make. But anyone who plays cricket wants to play Test cricket."
He has the ambition and the class to do that; proof he can cut it is all that is required and the Saltires will give him a platform to succeed.
References
http://www.cricketarchive.co.uk/Archive/Players/45/45476/45476.html http://sport.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=841&id=1103882006
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