Sakib Hussain learnt to bowl fast in the wheat fields of Gopalganj in Bihar, about halfway between Patna and the Nepal border, where makeshift pitches are carved out by clearing roots and rolling the surfaces flat. It's a world far removed from the structured cricket set-ups of the big cities, with their nets, coaches, selectors and well-defined pathway. Here there is none of that - just an unfiltered tennis-ball cricket ecosystem that thrives on mad passion and modest rewards.
For Sakib, now 21, those rewards meant the world. A good outing in a tennis-ball game fetched him anywhere between Rs 300 and 500 (US$5 approximately), money that went to a household dependent on his father's daily wages. Today, two IPL stints later - first with Kolkata Knight Riders in 2024 and now as a regular with Sunrisers Hyderabad - the financial burden has begun to ease, but the hard days are a reminder of how far he has come.
It was in those tennis-ball matches played on unpredictable surfaces that Sakib sharpened his pace to become the fast bowler he is today. The stamina came from his sprinting routine right through his teens - which he thought was a prerequisite for army trialling to join the army, which he seriously considered at one time.
"They called him Gopalganj's Rabada," says Robin Singh, a state coach in Bihar who mentors Sakib and has a close bond with him. So close that Sakib wears jersey No. 18 as a tribute to Robin's birth date.
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Robin first heard of Sakib in 2018, when he was just about 14.
"One of my nephews told me, 'Chacha, I have a friend. He's quick, but only plays tennis-ball cricket. With proper guidance, he'll become excellent,'" Robin says.
Intrigued, Robin invited Sakib to train at an academy he was associated with, in Patna's Anisabad area. He saw a wiry, wayward fast bowler with an unorthodox action.
"If these were state trials, maybe I wouldn't have shown that much interest," Robin says. "But my instincts told me he is special. The ball was travelling even on a slow wicket. It wasn't losing pace after pitching, it was skidding through. Batters were getting rushed."
Robin's belief is that while you can teach discipline, refine actions and build consistency, the kind of natural pace and skid Sakib possessed, despite never having had formal coaching or even having bowled with a red ball, was rare.
"I told him, 'Beta, we'll offer you free practice.' He said thank you, but later told my nephew that even if coaching was free, he couldn't afford the living expenses in Patna. So he went back to Gopalganj. When my nephew told me this, I said, 'We'll find a way.'"
In 2019, that way presented itself when a facility came up in Gopalganj. The man instrumental in setting it up was the late Tunna Giri, then president of the district cricket association there and a long-time patron of the sport in the region, who also happened to be a close family friend of Robin's.
"I told [Sakib], 'Now you don't need to go anywhere. Train here,'" Robin remembers. "But I put one condition: you have to stop playing tennis-ball cricket. Whatever difficulties you face, tell me directly. Tunna Giri and his younger brother, Kumar Giri, also said they would do whatever they can to help him financially."
By around mid-2020, results of the work on Sakib were beginning to show. While there was a marked improvement from when he first started, a year earlier, it wasn't easy to convince those within the selection system. Robin pushed, only to meet dismissive responses.
The common refrain was: "Arre, wohi bowler na? Jo dusre net pe ball phenkta hai?" [Isn't he the bowler who bowls into the other net?]
Robin observed that Sakib had a hyperextended elbow, like Jasprit Bumrah. Biomechanically, his wrist, the use of his levers, and the way energy transferred through his action were all fascinating. Sakib possessed traits that aligned with modern-day fast bowling principles, despite having been shaped entirely by tennis-ball cricket until then.
A breakthrough came in 2021, with the launch of the Bihar Cricket League (BCL), when Robin put his reputation on the line to get Sakib a gig. "At 10 pm, the night before the final shortlists for teams, I told one of the state coaches, Ashok Kumar, 'If this boy turns out bad, I'll stop coming to Patna for coaching.'"
Ashok had reached out to Robin asking for a few names he could recommend to BCL teams. He asked them to pick Sakib, who eventually went to Gaya Gladiators. While the selection felt like a significant personal victory for Robin, it didn't quite register the same way for Sakib himself.
He hesitated, and not because he didn't want to play but from not having the money to go to Patna for the tournament.
Robin and a few others arranged his train travel, and his kit.
"Later I found out a tennis-ball match was scheduled and he was going to be paid Rs 500," Robin says. "I had to drill it into him that BCL was a big opportunity and his life could potentially change."
Sakib eventually went, and two sessions in, the same people who had been skeptical about him began to take note seriously. The narrative quickly changed from them asking about where he had come from and how he had made it to asking him not to bowl in the nets. "Reserve your pace for the opposition and spare our own batters."
This reputation Sakib had gained of being an express quick grew further during an age-group tournament at Jamia in Delhi in late 2021. On a surface that offered almost nothing for fast bowlers, Sakib let them rip. Robin says he finished with 20 wickets in four matches, while the next-best tally for a fast bowler was five wickets.
These performances brought him onto the radar of S Sharath, the chairman of the junior selection panel. Sakib was selected for a zonal camp conducted by the National Cricket Academy, where he came under the tutelage of former India fast bowler Tinu Yohannan.
Then came a stint with the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai, followed by another as a net bowler with Chennai Super Kings during the 2022 IPL. Later that season he made his senior-team debut for Bihar in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where he took 4 for 20 in the last league game, against Gujarat.
"Batters were repeatedly rushed into their strokes, playing pull shots that ended up going to point or short third," Robin remembers.
Sakib's excellent initiation into senior cricket ought to have been a springboard into IPL 2023. But a knee injury put paid to those hopes. If not for it, he might possibly have been signed by CSK as a replacement for the injured Mukesh Choudhary. Instead, he was back to the drawing board.
In late 2023, when Robin joined JioHotstar as a commentator for the Bhojpuri feed, he ended up talking to several IPL franchise scouts. Among them was Abhishek Nayar, then KKR's assistant coach.
During a conversation, Nayar casually asked Robin how quick Sakib was. "I said, 'Very quick.' Look him up," Robin says. "Abhishek cross-checked with NCA, did his due diligence, reviewed [Mushtaq Ali] footage, called him for trials, and Sakib did very well. That's how he got picked by KKR for the 2024 season."
In practice matches that year, he dismissed Andre Russell and Manish Pandey. In one such game, needing to defend 21 off 12 balls, Sakib and Mitchell Starc were the designated death bowlers. Sakib gave away just six runs in the 19th.
Game opportunities, however, proved elusive. Starc, Harshit Rana and Vaibhav Arora were all performing in a season where KKR went on to win their third IPL title. Sakib had been in line to feature against CSK in Chennai, but KKR ended up losing early wickets in the game and opted for allrounder Anukul Roy as their Impact Sub.
"Maybe it was just meant to be that [Sakib's] debut would come later, in a bigger way," Robin says.
Having missed out in 2024, Sakib was released by KKR when the IPL entered a new auction cycle. An untimely injury once again meant he found no takers last year. He then moved to Lucknow - Robin's new base - and lived with him and trained during the off season.
There, they set themselves a goal: IPL 2026.
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Around then, Varun Aaron, SRH's current fast-bowling coach, began to play a transformative role in Sakib's career, after having heard of him from Sakib's peers at the MRF Pace Foundation, where he had been, until recently, a trainee. Aaron recognised in Sakib a rawness that needed direction.
"Varun bhai had already heard about him and seen some videos," Robin says. "But when he saw him properly, he understood what he could become." What followed was hands-on mentorship that Sakib is reaping the benefits of today.
"Varun has put in a lot of effort," Robin says. "His understanding of biomechanics and modern fast bowling is exceptional. When I speak to him, I feel he's next to no one in that space among young Indian coaches."
Aaron's approach with Sakib was clear. He wasn't going to reinvent the wheel. He did not try to remodel Sakib's action into something textbook-perfect, diluting his natural abilities in the process. Instead, training sessions became more purposeful, with greater attention paid to load management, recovery cycles, and incremental improvements rather than constant high-intensity output.
He remained in regular touch, tracking Sakib's progress, offering inputs remotely when he was busy with TV commitments, and ensured continuity by providing him access to other training environments when necessary. For instance, when Aaron was occupied with broadcast commitments for the T20 World Cup earlier this year, he sent Sakib to a former senior fast-bowling colleague at Jharkhand, SS Rao, in Bhubaneswar with a fully-tailored programme for Sakib to follow.
For all the structure that has come into Sakib's cricket now - the managed workloads, the attention to biomechanics, and access to elite coaching - traces of the wheat-field beginnings still remain. The skiddy pace, the bouncers, the refusal to hold back - like last weekend, when he stuck to his guns of trying to get Vaibhav Sooryavanshi with the short ball in Jaipur.
In this year's IPL, Sakib has bowled spells where batters have been hurried, and has delivered variations that have borne the same deception as his stock ball. Like in his debut game, where he picked up 4 for 24, against Rajasthan Royals again - three of them off his slower variations.
"With Sakib, that slow ball is just brilliant," Aaron said after Sunrisers Hyderabad's win over Delhi Capitals last week, a game in which Sakib returned figures of 1 for 29 when the average economy rate was pushing 11. "He's getting almost as much turn as an offspinner on that slower ball. Same arm speed, executes his yorkers, and can bowl 140-plus as well. With the way the game is headed, you need that range, you have to be able to go from 140-145 down to almost 107."
That range, once on show in the wheat fields of Gopalganj, is now being refined. Sakib's journey is far from complete. Somewhere in that run-up is still a boy who once had to choose between a Rs 500 tennis-ball game and a shot at something bigger; now he is finally running towards it, with nothing holding him back.