An article on him:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/th...-wi.../758491/
Kicking up a puff of dust, the leather tore through the top soil, fizzing its way past the batsman for a dot ball. But somewhere down his lengthy follow-through, Varun Aaron knew that he had done something bordering on the incredible. While the rest of his Jharkhand team-mates walked back to their fielding positions in anticipation of more action from the next delivery, the fast bowler stared long and hard at batter Niraj Patel, who smiled back in approval.
Later in the evening, Patel would be told that he had faced the fastest ball bowled by an Indian, ever.
tiiPatel’s shouldering arm routine may not have done much to justify the feat, nor did the widish line of the ball outside off-stump from Aaron. But in front of a spectator-less Holkar Stadium in Indore during the Vijay Hazare Trophy final between Jharkhand and Gujarat — with the overshadowing cricket World Cup as the backdrop — the 21-year-old tear-away quick had kicked up more than just a puff of dust. It was a storm gathering at 153 kmph.
“From the moment I released it, I knew I had done something special. It was fantastic to get the speed gun’s approval. The others may be shocked at the 153 kmph speed, but it wasn’t much of a surprise to me. I constantly bowl above the 140 mark,” says Aaron.
Parthiv Patel, who was captaining Gujarat in the game, agrees. “He is a fiercely quick bowler, as fast as any I’ve faced at the international level. Niraj, who faced the ball, was quite amazed. It’s hard to bowl that fast consistently, but Varun constantly zips it in the high 140s,” says Parthiv, who recently faced Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel at their peak in South Africa.
But could the speed gun have doled out a wrong reading? “Those who were bowling at 120 were recorded at 120. It didn’t go wrong with the spinners or the medium pacers, so why should it only go wrong with Aaron? There’s always room for scientific error, but the speed gun was accurate,” reasons Amitabh Choudhary, president of the Jharkhand State Cricket Association.
Registered at 95.63 mph, Aaron is still a few miles short of the mythical three-figure barrier, but the strapping lad has come closer to it than any other Indian bowler — past, present, domestic or international — has before. He may not be in the same bracket as the Taits, Akhtars and Lees of the world, but with age on his side, Aaron is a mouth-watering prospect for the speed-starved Indian fans.
And unlike the many who promised much and delivered at the low 130s, the Jharkhand lad has the guarantee of a speed-gun reading. While the likes of Munaf Patel, VRV Singh, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Mithun and Jaidev Unadkat (to name a few) smacked the spotlight for being reported to have cometed furious speeds at nervous batsmen in the domestic circuit, a stint with international cricket more or less brainwashed them into concentrating on the dreaded ‘line and length.’ But Aaron swears that he is not going to go down the same path. Speaking in a tongue reserved for tearaway quicks, the confident Aaron says: “Fast bowling is my strength and nothing is going to stop me from bowling faster. I’m not going to make the mistake of forgetting my strengths when I’m under pressure for a place in the team. If I really had to concentrate on line and length, I would have done it last year after suffering two stress fractures to my back. I wouldn’t have pushed myself despite the injuries if I wanted to be a control bowler.”
The signs are all there. The early age stress fractures are the scars of any genuinely quick bowler, if Pakistan bowling coach Aaquib Javed is to be believed. “The positives of getting a stress fracture at an early age for a quick bowler is that once the player has recovered, he will only grow from strength to strength as his body develops. That’s what I told Mohammad Amir when he recovered. Any great bowler that Pakistan has produced has dealt with it early in life,” says Javed.
By conventional wisdom, Aaron claims he has already taken the requisite technical steps to ensure the stress fracture doesn’t recur. “I used to tilt to my left during the run-up. The load on one side caused the damage. Now I’ve corrected it, and run absolutely straight towards the popping crease,” he assures.
The corrective measures, though, were a tad too late as far as IPL III was concerned, as the injuries saw him miss out on playing for the Kolkata Knight Riders—a dream for the Jamshedpur-born boy whose parents moved to the steel city from Bangalore in the 80s.
While he may have missed grabbing onto the eye-catching platform (surely would’ve been a greater advertisement for his art than his 25 wickets from 11 first-class games) Aaron did manage to turn the important heads of consultant Wasim Akram, coach Dav Whatmore and assistant coach Vijay Dahiya, just like he had in the MRF Pace Academy and the Australian Institute of Sports in 2008 with his high energy bursts during net sessions. TA Sekhar, who worked with Aaron at MRF, is also amongst his long list of fans. “I was the one who selected him at a very young age. He was less than 15 then, and was very quick for his age. Initially, he had a bit of a mixed action, which was open at the hips but closed at the shoulders. I helped him correct that, and now he bowls front-on,” says Sekhar. While wrapping Aaron in cotton wool is one option, unleashing him on opponents is another. Indian skipper and Jharkhand state-mate MS Dhoni is a believer in the latter. “I haven’t seen much of him, but from what I’ve heard, Aaron is great news for Indian cricket. It is also satisfying to know that Jharkhand has now produced a fast bowler of quality. The future is a bright one for Aaron,” says Dhoni.
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nvir
used to bowl between 85-90 mph, but sad to see his pace drop. No need to bring in wrestling, olympics, bla bla bla into it... Too many thread's being closed on PP these days. It is usually my job to write stupid posts that get's deleted, look's like a lot of people wan't to istep in for me now 
