History course helps Saideep Ganesh return to unfinished business

"I was the kind of guy who wouldn't finish things - I'd just go halfway and quit," recalled Saideep Ganesh, former Karnataka U16 and East Bay Blazers wicketkeeper-batsman. "But I finished this history course in college last year. It was really intense, three weeks of back-to-back essays, and I did it, start to finish."

For those who know Saideep, he has often been guilty of leaving things unfinished. Whether it was his early promise with the bat, when as a teenager he lit up the Karnataka A Division league with a stroke-filled 65 on debut only to never kick on. Or when he was fast-tracked into the USA setup by his boyhood coach J Arun Kumar and could not seize the opportunity. Or even when he dropped out of college on five separate occasions. The history course was his first real proof to himself that he could go the distance if he put his mind through the grind.

And that same sense of resolve was on full display on the opening weekend of this year's Minor League Cricket season. After four underwhelming seasons marked by injuries, form slumps, and personal turbulence, the 24-year-old emerged from the shadows. He notched up his first-ever MiLC century, a breathtaking unbeaten 111 off just 53 balls against San Diego. In the very next game, he followed it up with a swashbuckling 60* off 36 deliveries against the Silicon Valley Strikers, taking apart an attack featuring international names like Nawaz Khan, Saurabh Netravalkar, and Raymon Reifer.

Short in stature but audacious in nature, Saideep dazzled with a bat flourish that sort of resonates with the doyens of the Karnataka school of batsmanship. The short-arm jab for six, a pickup shot worthy of comparison to his statemate KL Rahul, and the rare ability to hit sixes down the ground off the back foot, all served as vindication for Arun Kumar's decision to back him ahead of more seasoned options for the USA squad in 2022.

The irony is that this purple patch comes less than a year after Saideep had decided to quit cricket altogether. Injury setbacks had ruled him out of a USA tour and sidelined him from MLC's inaugural season in 2023. He played just three games in MiLC 2023 and then disappeared from the circuit, battling mental demons and refusing to pick up a bat for nearly a year.

"It was about finding myself again," he says of that period. "Earlier I felt like I was playing cricket to get a contract. I feel sometimes when you forget why you play and what it means to you. I was in that place where I didn't have anything else going on apart from cricket. I got injured, and then I just decided that I needed to sort out my life outside of cricket. I went back to school, and I started studying again. I play my best cricket when cricket isn't the only thing that is on my mind"

"Saideep picked up odd jobs like working as a driving instructor and even worked at his local Chipotle. "You just grow up a little bit!" added Saideep. You figure out that life is not all roses and rainbows, and it's like you're dealing with more real things, and like you're thinking about your life, and you're thinking about how you are as a person, and then you obviously realize that you need work on you."

A result of that work is that Saideep is 35 pounds lighter than what he was when he broke into the USA team in late 2022. Not just lighter physically but lighter mentally as well after decluttering his mind from the baggage of expectations.

His blazing performances this past weekend were not just a testament to his rediscovered skill but also an ode to those who refused to give up on him. His club captain Karthik Raila, who kept persuading him to return during his self-imposed exile, the East Bay Blazers management, who backed him despite years of inconsistency and his childhood friend and teammate Sanjay Krishnamurthi, American cricket's latest breakout star, whose faith and timely nudges reminded Saideep of the talent he possessed.