Netravalkar is presently working for Oracle, and is on a H-1B visa.[5] According to his LinkedIn profile, he currently works for Oracle as a principal member of technical staff (PMTS).[6]
Early life and education
Netravalkar was born in Mumbai, India to Goan parents from Netravali. He studied at Sardar Patel Institute of Technology and later at Cornell University.[7] He moved to United States in 2015 to pursue a master's degree in computer science at Cornell University. His strong academic credentials and keen interest in cricket helped him develop a player-analysis app CricDecode. As he finished graduate school, Netravalkar was offered a job by Oracle in San Francisco.
Career
Junior cricket
His talent was spotted when he rattled the stumps of fellow Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh with his disciplined spell of bowling at the NCA in Bengaluru while he was on Air India's sports scholarship in 2009. His delivery to dismiss Yuvraj Singh eventually caught the attention of the cricketing fraternity and landed him an opportunity to play in the prestigious BCCI Corporate Trophy, where he shared dressing room with Singh, Robin Uthappa and Suresh Raina. He eventually ended the BCCI Corporate Trophy as the joint highest wicket-taker. He grew in leaps and bounds with his bowling at the 2008/09 Cooch Behar Trophy where he took a tally of 30 scalps in 6 matches.[8] He also spearheaded India's bowling unit in an Under-19 Tri-nation series held in South Africa leading up to the 2010 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup by taking 8 wickets.[9]
He represented India in the 2010 U19 World Cup while playing for India U19. In the tournament he played alongside KL Rahul, Jaydev Unadkat and Mayank Agarwal who all later played for the Indian national cricket team. He also sacrificed his academic participation in order to take part at the 2010 ICC U19 World Cup, as he had to miss first semester exams of his Computer Engineering degree which he actually committed to six months earlier than the start of the tournament. Initially, his sacrifice paid rich dividends as he ended up the 2010 U19 World Cup as the leading wicket taker of the tournament for India capturing nine wickets in as many as six matches with a bowling average of 17.22. Eventually, India were knocked out in the quarter-final by rivals Pakistan in a rain affected match which ended in thrilling fashion.[10][11] Despite his memorable performances with the ball, he failed to make the India national cricket team or the Mumbai team, as it was already a pace heavy star studded lineup which had the likes of Zaheer Khan, Aavishkar Salvi, Ajit Agarkar and Dhawal Kulkarni.[12]
International cricket
In 2016, he turned up for the North West Region at the USACA National Championship. He went out to seek opportunities to play as much as possible when the ICC lowered their minimum residency for eligibility from four years to three. He delivered a clinical spell for Southern California Cricket Association XI against a USA XI in a national-team warm-up match in the summer of 2017 which caught the attention of the then head coach of US national team Pubudu Dassanayake.[13]
In February 2019, he became US's captain in Twenty20 International (T20I). He led them in a series against UAE.[19][20] The matches were the first T20I fixtures to be played by the United States national team.[21] He debuted in T20I in that series on March 15, 2019.[22] Further the USA cricket association announced him as their captain for Division 2 U19 World Cup, Namibia in April 2019.[23] The US finished in the top four places in the tournament, therefore gaining One Day International (ODI) status.[24] Netravalkar made his ODI debut for the United States on April 27, 2019, against Papua New Guinea, in the tournament's third-place playoff.[25]
On June 6, 2024, Netravalkar gained international fame and became an overnight sensation after playing a pivotal role in engineering a famous victory against Pakistan by bowling the super over during the 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup.[13] He successfully defended 18 runs in the super over to help America register a remarkable upset victory over much favored opponents in the calibre of Pakistan marking America's second consecutive win in the tournament.[38] The victory lifted America to the top of the table in their Group and increased the qualification chances for the Super Eight round.[39] Following his performance, his colleagues at Oracle acknowledged his achievement in cricket and he apparently took office leave until 17 June 2024, according to some reports.[9][40] He got the wickets of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli cheaply and gave the mighty Indian cricket team a run for their money when the two teams met in the World T20 group fixture at New York. He also dropped Suryakumar Yadav's catch at a critical juncture of the game, which India eventually won by 7 wickets with Yadav scoring an unbeaten half-century.
