"it seemed like the right choice to start a new life in the USA"
Saurabh Netravalkar’s cricket journey stretches from Mumbai’s unforgiving domestic circuit to a completely different sporting landscape in the United States, where cricket is still finding its footing.
Along the way, his path has moved between professional sport, elite education at Cornell University, and a career in engineering in Silicon Valley, each shaping a different version of discipline and ambition.
What makes his story stand out is not just the return to international cricket, but the way it sits alongside a full-time career outside the game.
The result is a career defined less by linear progression and more by constant negotiation between competing worlds.
The release of a new documentary captures this arc in full, tracing how setbacks, relocation and rediscovery have shaped his path in unexpected ways.
In an interview, Saurabh Netravalkar reflects on how those shifts unfolded and what they demanded from him across different stages of his life.
From Mumbai Cricket to a Hard Reality Check
Saurabh Netravalkar’s early career in India was shaped by proximity to elite cricket, but also by the gradual recognition that breaking through required more than promise.
Coming through Mumbai’s system meant competing in one of the most demanding domestic environments, as he admits:
“I think mainly the realisation that I wasn’t good enough to play for India, stemming from not being able to cement a spot on the Mumbai Ranji team, not getting picked in the IPL auction, and being unable to impress during multiple IPL tryouts.
“In parallel, in 2014/15, I took the GRE and submitted a few college applications.
“When I got the acceptance from Cornell, it seemed like the right choice to start a new life in the USA, experience it and kind of give up on the cricket dream.”
Netravalkar’s move to Cornell became the point where cricket became something he would have to rebuild from outside the system entirely.
Rebuilding Cricket in the USA
At Cornell, cricket existed alongside coursework and the adjustment to independent living, rather than as part of any structured sporting pathway.
Matches were limited, and opportunities to play competitively were sporadic.
Netravalkar says: “My first year at Cornell was completely focused on coursework, learning to live independently, doing all household chores alongside studies, making new friends at college, and so on.
“I played casual cricket, and Cornell did have a cricket club.
“We played a couple of inter-college tournaments in the then American College Cricket circuit, but very few matches here and there.”
His shift towards more regular cricket came when Netravalkar came into contact with a wider community of players in the US.
He says: “Later, when I moved to San Francisco for my job at Oracle, I started playing weekend club cricket and was introduced to other members of the then USA team.
“They started driving to Los Angeles, a 6-hour round-trip, almost every weekend to play, since they had a proper cricket pitch.
“Gradually, I started travelling around the USA on weekends to play T20 pop-up tournaments and gradually found my way into the national team.
“I got serious, focused on fitness and diet, and eventually started the vegan journey and a spiritual journey into Yoga.”
What followed was a gradual integration into a national setup that was still forming its identity, where progression was built through persistence rather than a fixed development pathway.
Early success was witnessed during the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup when the United States defeated Pakistan.
Recalling the match, he says: “From the match, I just remember us putting in a complete team effort, believing we wanted to compete till the last ball. Kudos to everyone!
“From the super over, the fact that I was just being focused on the present moment and what I needed to do on one ball, repeatedly.
“Finally, I remember falling on my knees in a sigh of relief, and everyone hugging me and each other after the game. Then, the outpouring of love was received on social media.”
Major League Cricket
Major League Cricket’s introduction has shifted the structure around US cricket significantly, as Saurabh Netravalkar explains:
“Major League is playing a pivotal role in giving locals a platform to play alongside top cricketers from around the world, under elite coaching and support staff.
“It played a crucial role in making our national team strongly competitive in 2 consecutive World Cups.
“Personally, my game has evolved a lot post-MLC, playing alongside Steve Smith and Glenn Maxwell, and coaching under Ricky Ponting and the likes.”
That exposure changed performance levels as well as how players approach training and preparation.
Netravalkar says: “I just look to learn from that, imbibe the lessons into my preparation and carry it forward to wherever I train, whether it’s the national team, local training sessions or club games in San Francisco.
“I’m also happy to share my experiences with the juniors I train. The next generation of USA cricketers is innately very promising and multi-faceted.”
That next generation is already visible, as he adds:
“Already there are 3 players, Sanjay Krishnamurti, Sai Teja Mukkamala and Rushil Ugarkar, who are all studying Computer Science and such professional fields in college and are already doing so well in MLC and the national team!
“It’s very heartening to see this.”
Balancing Two Careers
Alongside international cricket, Saurabh Netravalkar continues to work full-time in engineering, which comes with unique challenges:
“It has been a constant effort to understand the next important phase, whether a work project or an upcoming tournament, and to prioritise time accordingly.”
As a result, that structure is based on immediate focus and putting maximum effort into the task taken up in that moment.
Netravalkar admits other aspects of his life have been affected:
“I’m not able to go on other family vacations, hang out as often with friends, or spend enough time at home with Snigdha and Dhimahi, my daughter.
“But these are partially overcome by being creative, such as having family over during cricket tours and having family time and travel between game days on rest days and so on.”
That balance is maintained through structure and adaptation, where both careers continue in parallel despite clear trade-offs in time and personal space.
Looking Back on the Journey
The cricketer is the subject of the feature-length documentary, The Long Game: Saurabh Netravalkar, Between Two Worlds.
According to Netravalkar, it offered a different way of engaging with his career, allowing him to relive moments across India and the United States.
“It was kind of a therapeutic experience. I got to relive all moments.
“It was almost 13-14 hours of interview across 2/3 sittings.
“I gained closure on lots of things, understood the value of so many people in my life and so on.”
The production itself spanned close to a year and involved multiple locations, staged recreations and contributions from people across different parts of his life, including family, colleagues and coaches.
“Almost a year on the project. Lots of learning. So much goes on behind the scenes, and director Pierre [Friquet], Producer Adam [Leipzig], Nitin and the entire team have put in insane amounts of effort.
“From my side, it included long individual interviews at different locations, home in the USA, office, Mumbai multiple locations, voice recording studio multiple times, different acting scenes replicating a day in my life in the USA, in Mumbai, some scenes in Mumbai local trains, song recording and having cameras record real raw moments during the 2026 World Cup.
“Alongside, they interviewed my entire family, friends, colleagues at work, coaches and so many more people. Very grateful to be part of the project.”
That process added another layer to how he views his own journey.
Saurabh Netravalkar’s career resists the idea of a single defining arc.
Instead, it moves across systems that rarely overlap, shaped by the demands of elite sport, professional engineering and life outside both.
His progression from India to the United States, and from club cricket to the international stage, reflects a sporting journey built through adaptation rather than convention.
Two Worlds captures that complexity without trying to simplify it, bringing together the different strands of a life lived across countries, careers and expectations.
What emerges is not a story of reinvention in isolation, but of continuity across change, where each phase feeds into the next rather than replacing it.
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