T Natarajan, a quintessential left-arm pacer for India at present?

Ever since the retirement of one of India's finest left-arm pacers Zaheer Khan, there has always been a question mark about the perfect pacer to step into his shoes. However, selectors have done their best by giving the opportunities to the likes of Jaydev Unadkat, Barinder Sran and even Khaleel Ahmed of late. But none of them were able to make an impact.

As we know, left-arm pacers always have a natural angle to right-hand batsmen and if mastered the in-swing art perfectly, they can be lethal at it. We've seen many left-arm pacers who could in-swing into the right handers successfully. Wasim Akram, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Johnson, Trent Boult, etc. Even RP Singh showed immense potential of deceiving the batsmen with his in-swingers in his initial years, before his swing disappeared.

When Zaheer lost his place from the team due to fitness issues, youngsters like Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, Ashish Nehra were given opportunities to showcase their talent but Zaheer's impact was unmatchable especially in the death overs and none of them were consistent enough.

There were some rumours in 2019 that the selectors might have moved on from their obsession of having a left-arm pacer in the team due to lack of results.

But after watching Natarajan's consistent performances during this year's IPL, the selectors might have seen a ray of hope and there are high chances that he may also represent the Men in Blue in the forthcoming T20 World Cup. It would really be a proud moment for Tamil Nadu to watch their hero once again representing his national side. But the only thing is that we wish Natarajan continue to perform well in the blue jersey as we all know, playing for a country is much much bigger than playing for a franchise in IPL or any other league as the pressure there is colossal.