Agni Chopra: The notion-busting 'misfit' takes flight

On 19th February around 9 pm Pacific time, Agni Chopra boarded for his Air India flight from San Francisco to Mumbai. It was also the night for the privately held MLC domestic draft to which Agni looked forward to with nervous anticipation. However, that nervous energy would grip him for the next 17 hours as the flight provided no Wi-Fi option to communicate to the outside world. However, as he prepared for the take off, little did he know that his cricket career was about to take wings as well, in the country of his birth.

"I couldn't wait to land. After landing I saw a text from my mom saying that I had been picked up by MI New York for $50,000! I was alone in the plane, and I couldn't really shout or do anything as that would have been very weird since we had just landed. It kind of felt like a full circle moment because I come from the city where the franchise is based. I have been a lifelong MI fan. I just had that moment of gratitude for everyone that's been part of my journey, my family, my coaches especially KP (Khushpreet Singh Aulakh) and all my teammates over the years" said Agni.

Born into a showbiz family of celebrated Bollywood producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and eminent film critic Anupama Chopra, the journey that Agni referred to, quite serendipitously carries the elements of a bollywood chartbuster. Right from the time he set foot in Shivaji Park as a 6-year-old, his has been a journey of highs and lows. An enduring journey of a 'misfit' cricketer trying his level best to be a 'Bambaiya' boy. A success story of a player and a coach with an unshakable faith in each other. And many things in between a bad break up and a terrific record break.

Despite being brought up in a showbiz household, Agni never took to movies the way other star kids in the industry naturally do. "My dad would always tell my mom yeh kiska beta hain mera toh nai ho sakta hain after he saw the I was drawn to cricket and other sports and wasn't really interest in films (laughs)". He had stars in his periphery as a child but the presence of that star quotient around him inspired him to strive for success and glory in the sphere of life he was fascinated to.

"It was like a decision that I made for myself, and since I was six years old, I've always loved cricket, and there was no logic or no reason behind it. It wasn't like my parents made me watch cricket, or I was deliberately exposed to cricket. At six years old, I told my mom I wanted to play cricket, and she took me to Shivaji Park"

From privileged to the underprivileged, cricket is a sport played by the entire strata of the society in Mumbai now. Moreover, the proportion of the affluent class may have seen a dip in numbers on the Mumbai maidans in the recent years. For the 'privileged' young Agni it was always a constant battle at Shivaji Park and beyond shedding the 'misfit' tag. About taking pains of vanquishing the preconceived notions about his background. And a perennial effort to be one of them lads. If his privilege off the field was a boon, that privilege soon would become a bane on the field.

"At the age of 8 or 10, people didn't look at me differently. I was just one of the boys. The only difference was that I didn't know Marathi coming from a Punjabi family. So at the time, I started learning Marathi. Then when I was about 12 I could kind of sense that people would look at me differently, or they would speak to me differently, and that at the time, I couldn't understand what it was. But then I understood that it was because of my background. And at the time, I became very aware of certain things, and I would try my best to fit in"

"One example is I used to practice at MiG ground, close to my school. But I would go from school to the ground, and I had a driver with me, so I would always tell the driver that we would park the car a few blocks away. And then I'd walk five minutes to the ground, so that nobody knew that I was coming with a car or I had a driver because I didn't want to stand out in that way. And even when I leave, I'd do the same and make sure that nobody would see me. So that was just something that I try to do to fit in, because I didn't want to be different, or I didn't ask to be different either."

Agni felt the pangs of 'privilege' not just amongst peers but in general perception amongst a few coaches and selectors as well. The dogmas around Agni's cricket had many even doubting his love for the game.

"The preconceived notion was that he's not a good guy because he is a rich kid. He doesn't care about cricket because he's a rich man's son. He doesn't have to play cricket. He'll quit cricket, and he's not interested in cricket. Basically, that was kind of the notion that without me saying anything, or without meeting me or judging me as a person, that is what people thought. I knew a few selectors also thought similarly during my first couple of under 19 years. There were times where people would not like me or not think that I was fit to be in the Mumbai team, purely because of this reason."

Agni managed to get a level of acceptance in the cricketing fraternity by reaching across the aisle in different ways but he knew he could only command respect by what he does between the 22 yards that matter. He enjoyed his first real moment in the sun after amassing nearly 800 runs in 10 games in the Col. C.K. Nayudu Trophy, a BCCI U23 tournament, in the 2019-20 season. He ended up topping the run charts for Mumbai with three hundreds including a double century. Agni credited that reincarnation as a batter to his coach and now brotherly figure Khushpreet Singh Aulakh. The pair have been working together since July 2019.

"When we first met he didn't have that belief in himself. And that belief comes from practice. We elevated the level of his practice. He had never played over 200 balls in a net session before that. We set targets like playing 25,000 balls per month. A good thing about him is that he is not lazy. If I ask him to wake up at 5 am and train he was willing to do that" said Khushpreet.

While Agni surrendered his mind and body to Khushpreet's modus operandi, it took time for him to be his guardian at heart. Agni had sent an SOS call to Khushpreet after failing in the first two games of the C.K. Nayudu trophy. Khushpreet left for Himachal Pradesh to help Agni turn the tide. The counsel worked as Agni duly notched a double hundred in the next game against Bengal and remained prolific with the bat throughout the tournament thereafter.

"KP introduced me to Shubman Gill and he has been another major influence in my life. We struck it off right away and started spending a lot more time with each other. What was happening with me was that I only cared about results, and Shubman is completely opposite. Shubman cares about the process. He makes the process paramount and results irrelevant. I benefited a lot from being around him" added Agni.

The summit of the 2019-20 season, however, was followed by an abyss post covid that stretched till mid 2023. He failed to get the backing of the Mumbai selectors for the 2020-21 Ranji season after a youngster would typically get after a stellar CK Nayudu trophy. A freak nail injury had him grounded for a bit of 2022 and he came to his wits end when he lost his place in the XI at Dadar Union, his primary club.

"It was at that moment I had given up my dream of playing in the Ranji trophy for Mumbai. It was a really big blow to me. I felt like I'm done playing cricket? Because I was 22 and had been dropped from my Mumbai club team. I was also with this girl at the time, and I went through a breakup. It was a bit messy, it wasn't like the best kind of situation. I'd never experienced that before, because I had never, kind of dated anyone.I was only kind of playing cricket. But through that period I was very low. There were times where I would think about kind of quitting and letting it go or doing something else, but that kind of love for cricket really sustained me"

A call up to the Mizoram squad for the Ranji trophy Plate division aided Agni in putting those distractions to bed. That moment of reckoning he had yearned for while grinding day in and out had finally arrived. The left hander seized the moment by the scruff of its neck and blazed his way into the record books with 4 centuries in his first 4 first class games. He ended the season with a whopping 939 runs in 6 games. He emulated his superhuman effort the next season to sustain a collective average of 94.94 over 13 first class games.

"I've never in my life thought that I have more than one game to play, or two games to play max, because if you don't perform well in two games, you're dropped in Mumbai. It's as simple as that. I was relishing the fact that I have an entire season to play here for Mizoram. You become a different cricketer after a sense of security and it has a positive impact in the way you practice as well"

Agni maintains that he has no qualms in retiring from the first class game in India despite the highs of the past two seasons. An American passport holder by virtue of his birth, he was pushed to come to this decision after BCCI mandated participation only from Indian passport holders for the Ranji trophy. He confided that it wasn't an easy decision since days cricket is still the pinnacle of the game for him but it was more of a practical decision given the pecking order he finds himself for the India selection. Besides, the lure of locking horns against some of the best in the world while being at the peak of his powers was quite simply too big of an opportunity cost to let go off.

"It has always been my dream of playing the Ranji trophy, playing in the elite division and going on to win the title. Playing in the MLC and US opens the doors for me to play international cricket as well. I would still applied for an Indian passport and stayed if I had been picked in the IPL but looking forward to my time in America now"

Agni is an avid reader and a big believer in the philosophical idea of manifestation. He read a self help book titled 'Tipping Point' during COVID which professed a motivation theory through an extended metaphor of how seemingly insignificant adding a drop of water everyday to a glass is, until the time it overflows at some point. Agni takes great heart from the midnight oil he has been burning over the past five years which in turn has fueled an unbridled surge in his runs and stocks - an ascent reflected in his selection as MI New York's number 1 draft pick.