USA pacer Saurabh Netravalkar has said that he holds no regrets over leaving his Indian cricket team and IPL dream behind to pursue engineering in the United States.

Mumbai-born Netravalkar, who represented India in the 2010 U-19 World Cup, has become a household name after scripting USA’s historic win in the Super Over against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup 2024 match at Dallas last week.

Even though Netravalkar was up against clean strikers like Iftikhar Ahmed, Fakhar Zaman and Shadab Khan, the left-arm quick held his nerves to seal the deal for USA. He leaked 13 runs in the Super Over and picked up the wicket of Iftikhar on the third delivery.

In an exclusive chat with India Today, Netravalkar opened up on his fascinating journey from being in the Indian U-19 team to playing for USA in the ongoing T20 World Cup.

"I can take it to under-19, when I played in 2010 for the Indian team. Parallelly, I was also doing my engineering. My bachelors was from 2009 to 2013, so I was juggling between both. It is a good thing that I had a passion for both. In 2013, there came a point when I had to make a call. I was offered a job as a software engineer in India. But I decided not to take it up and then give two years to cricket," Netravalkar said.

"I trained hard with everybody's support, made it to the Mumbai team. I played for two seasons, but then I realised at the end of the second year, that I was in and out of the side and was not making it to the next stage, like the senior Indian team or an IPL contract. So I thought if I'm not making it to the next stage then I should pursue my other passion. It was definitely very emotional for me to leave cricket and come here, but then I thought that it was the more practical call," he added.

Having won their first two Group A matches against Canada and Pakistan, USA are in a good position to qualify for the Super 8 stage of the tournament.

USA will next face the Rohit Sharma-led Indian team in New York on Wednesday (June 12).