33, No IPL, Father's Cancer Note in His Kit Bag — Saransh Jain Finally Gets the Call

Saransh Jain had been to the temple. That's how he starts the story — not at a franchise auction or a press conference, but at a temple in Indore. When he came back, his phone had blown up.

'After returning from the temple, my phone was inundated with messages and missed calls,' Jain said. 'I realised that I was selected in the Indian Test squad for next month's Sri Lankan tour.'

He is 33 years old. He has never played an IPL match. He has never been part of an India T20I or ODI squad. He has spent twelve years bowling off-spin for Madhya Pradesh in grounds where the stands are mostly empty and the scorers know your name. And now — after 54 first-class matches, 188 wickets, two centuries, ten five-fors, and one father's handwritten note that he has carried with him for over a decade — Saransh Jain is an India cricketer.

He is the oldest player to earn a maiden India Test call-up this century.

In 2014, Saransh was on tour in Australia representing a club from Madhya Pradesh. Back in Indore, his father Subodh Jain — his first coach, the man who built a cricket pitch on the rooftop of their house with a jaali covering so his son could practise — was diagnosed with oral cancer.

The family hid it from him. They told him nothing about the diagnosis, nothing about the surgery. He found out only when he returned home.

Subodh Jain didn't want his son's grief to ruin his cricket. Instead, he gave him a note: 'I am fine now, son. If you just play better, I will get well sooner.'

That note became the fuel. Through twelve Ranji Trophy seasons without a national call-up, through IPL auctions where his name never came up, through India A squads he was never picked for until this year — Subodh's handwriting stayed in Saransh's kit bag.

'My father is my hero,' Jain said. 'He was the reason why I became a cricketer.'

When the squad was announced, the first call Subodh made wasn't to congratulate his son. It was to say five words in Hindi that needed no translation: 'Mera sapna tha, woh poora hua.' My dream has come true.

Let's be honest about the mechanics of this. Washington Sundar's unavailability for the first Test opened a slot, and the selectors needed an off-spinner who could bat — specifically one with experience against left-handers, given the number of left-hand batters in Sri Lanka's lineup.

Jain ticked every box. His 2025-26 Ranji Trophy season was absurd: 518 runs at 57.55 and 30 wickets at 20.43. Not the numbers of a man winding down; the numbers of a man who'd been waiting for exactly this moment for twelve years and refused to let it pass quietly.

Then the India A tour sealed it. In the second unofficial Test against Sri Lanka A, Jain scored an unbeaten 70 off 140 balls and picked up six wickets. India A won by 10 wickets. 'The just-concluded India A tour of Sri Lanka, where I picked up six wickets and scored an unbeaten 70, instilled confidence,' Jain said. 'Two years back, the six-for against Mumbai at the Irani Trophy was another important milestone.'

Former BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale put it bluntly: 'He literally forced his entry into the Indian team, although it is a bit late.'

To understand Saransh Jain, you have to understand two men: Subodh Jain and Chandrakant Pandit.

Subodh, a bank employee who collected notices for taking too many leaves, built a cricket pitch on the family's rooftop in Indore. He covered it with a jaali so the ball wouldn't fly into the street. He drove both his sons to the club every day. He taught Saransh to bowl before he taught him anything else about life. When MP U-19 coach Sunil Dholpure was asked about the call-up, he didn't talk about Saransh first: 'His father gets more credit for what he has done for Saransh.'

Then there's Pandit — the Madhya Pradesh head coach who turned domestic cricket's perennial underachievers into Ranji Trophy contenders. Pandit spotted Jain early: 'I thought that he's got some different ability as a genuine off-spinner who can bat.' He suggested Jain bowl round the wicket more. Jain resisted initially — he was set in his ways. But Pandit's coaching philosophy doesn't leave room for stubbornness. Jain adapted. 'He's a very good student of the game,' Pandit said.

Jain also sought advice from Harbhajan Singh three months ago. 'He gave me some tips like how to use the crease better and bowl with a higher arm action because I tend to go slightly around-arm,' Jain said. At 33, still learning. Still adjusting.

In the IPL era, Indian cricket has built a glittering highway from franchise cricket to international caps. Saransh Jain didn't use that highway. He didn't even have a ticket. He took the service road — the Ranji Trophy, the Duleep Trophy, the Irani Cup, the India A tours — and arrived at the same destination, twelve years later than he might have if the system noticed him sooner.

'My selection shows that the IPL alone is not the yardstick for making the cut,' Jain said. That's not bitterness. It's a statement of fact delivered by a man who has 188 first-class wickets and knows exactly what he's worth.

India's two-Test series in Sri Lanka begins August 15 in Galle, followed by the second Test in Colombo. A four-day practice match starts in Colombo on August 7. Jain may or may not play — Jasprit Bumrah and Sai Sudharsan are in the squad subject to fitness clearance, and Ravindra Jadeja has returned from injury. There's competition for every spot.

But whether or not Saransh Jain earns a cap in Galle, his selection has already said something that Indian cricket doesn't say often enough: the domestic grind still matters. The old road still leads somewhere. And a handwritten note from a father fighting cancer can carry a man further than any IPL auction paddle ever could.