Mumbai-born Harmeet Singh played two U19 World Cups for India and was earmarked for great success, before a series of events derailed his dream. Now, in one of cricket’s most fascinating tales, he’s playing for USA in the T20 World Cup.

Remember Harmeet Singh?

If you do, it’s probably a vague image of him in a Rajasthan Royals IPL kit. Or maybe the blue India jersey from one of the U19 World Cups. The Mumbai Ranji Trophy whites, perhaps?

If you don’t recall any of those, you’ll definitely see him in a USA kit at this T20 World Cup. It’s one of modern cricket’s most outlandish life stories.

Fifteen years ago, in the 2008/09 Vijay Merchant Trophy, the Mumbai Under-15 squad had two left-arm bowlers – Harmeet Singh Baddhan and Saurabh Netravalkar. Delhi had Unmukt Chand. They went on to play Under-19 cricket together. Several years on, two of them are part of the USA’s World Cup squad.

Across these 15 years, Harmeet’s life story has been nothing short of a Bollywood movie.

Comparisons with Bedi

By 2012, Harmeet became an Under-19 World Cup winner alongside fellow future America exports Chand and Smit Patel. The triumph, India’s third in the tournament, propelled the entire squad into stardom. “I hadn’t ever seen so many people at the airport,” Chand later said about the team’s welcome in India.

There was individual praise reserved for Chand and Harmeet. Ian Chappell felt they were ready for international cricket. Harmeet was compared to the great Bishan Singh Bedi, the ultimate praise for any aspiring left-arm spinner in India back then.

Not long after, it all came crashing down.

Controversies galore

In less than a year, Harmeet got dragged into IPL’s biggest controversy – the 2013 spot-fixing scandal. Part of the Rajasthan Royals squad and all of 20, he was in the process of moving from Mumbai to Vidarbha state team. Initially suspended, he was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, but an IPL game never came his way again.

In the background, Harmeet suffered from the fast spread of misinformation. A leading newspaper named him as one of the accused players, prompting the BCCI to even issue a clarification.

He returned to Mumbai, but chances did not come as thick and fast as they once used to. Over the next seven years, he played 25 first-class matches, also briefly shifting to the Jammu & Kashmir team. By 2019, his List A career had wrapped up, despite a desperate move to Tripura, part of the Plate Division.

In between, there was more drama. As he struggled to get regular game time with Mumbai, Harmeet clawed back into the headlines after an extremely bizarre incident.

In 2017, a car driven by Harmeet somehow managed to speed uncontrollably into a Mumbai railway platform, sending commuters into panic. It stopped adjacent to the railway tracks. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but Harmeet was detained by the police and later released. The news sent media outlets and social media accounts into action, even as Harmeet insisted he was “misled” while trying to park his car.

To top it, Harpreet Singh, another cricketer with a name just a few letters apart, was the collateral damage of the incident. A few media outlets mistook Harpreet to be the cricketer in trouble. It cost him an IPL contract, for the auction was taking place then, and teams did not bid for a cricketer potentially on the wrong side of the law.

Back to Harmeet: the rash driving, mixed with other minor incidents of misconduct, reportedly put him at odds with the then Mumbai coach Chandrakant Pandit. Over time, finances dwindled.

“I don’t know how I messed it up so badly,” he told Cricbuzz in an interview in 2020, hoping for a “miracle” to get back on track.

A new start

In search of greener pastures, Harmeet migrated to the USA after being offered a future, leaving behind an India career that promised a lot but did not nearly live up to the early potential. According to an Indian Express interview, he did odd jobs and part-time cricket coaching as he rose through the rungs.

He entered the inaugural Major League Cricket draft after leading the Seattle Thunderbolts in Minor League Cricket, and was snapped up by the Orcas. Having entered a three-year deal with USA, he was eligible to play for the national team in 30 months.

In April this year, 12 years after Chappell had prophesied, Harmeet earned his maiden international wicket, albeit with another country’s name on his chest.

⏪ Rewind of Harmeet Singh’s heroics against Bangladesh before the clash ⚔️ today! #HojaoAdFree | #tapmad pic.twitter.com/HTDsDIuSkP

— tapmad (@tapmadtv) June 2, 2024

At 31, there’s still a lot to look forward to, but the immediate assignment is the T20 World Cup. The USA are currently ranked 18th, but are aiming to be giant-slayers this time. They started that quest by trumping Bangladesh in a pre-World Cup series. Harmeet had a pivotal role to play in the first of the two historic wins, smashing a 13-ball 33 to take them through. Later, he declared USA were “no walkovers”.

On June 12, when the USA play India – for the first time ever in any format – the Harmeet story will add another chapter. There’s going to be support from both sides of the world, as his father currently undergoes medical treatment in Mumbai.

Nearly twelve years after his last World Cup – an U19 – Harmeet picked the opening wicket of the 2024 T20 World Cup.