Vipraj Nigam spins, swings and dreams

At 65 for 5, Delhi Capitals were in trouble in their first match of IPL 2025 against Lucknow Super Giants. Watching from the sidelines, team mentor Kevin Pietersen was asked in a flash interview if the game was slipping away. The former England captain replied in the negative. He backed Ashutosh Sharma, who'd just walked in, and also picked out Vipraj Nigam, a 20-year-old Lucknow boy in DC's ranks yet to take the field.

Nigam only found out later, after the Capitals had pulled off a stunning win. It has stayed with him. "That was the best part,' Nigam beams in a chat with Cricbuzz. "To know that someone like him believed in us even before we stepped in, and that we delivered on it, there can't be a better feeling."

Nigam was living a dream he first saw as an eight-year-old in Barabanki, a town close to the UP capital of Lucknow. The son of a Government teacher and a house wife, Nigam, was enamoured watching Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings clash in the IPL final of 2013. The star-studded line-ups, the dazzling lights, the roaring crowd - they had all captured his imagination. Now in Vizag, he went from being a spectator to becoming the central figure of the spectacle.

'When you enter the ground, when you're on the field in the first over, when the crowd is right there, you realise it's something different. Kuch toh alag hai,' Nigam says.

Mumbai Indians re-entered Nigam's story last November. They were one of three teams that auditioned him in the lead-up to the mega auction. But ultimately, Delhi Capitals wanted him more, having closely studied what he could offer.

A leg-spinner who can hit - it's a rare combination, and Nigam had it. In a format where versatility is king, the 20-year-old's ability to turn the ball both ways and clear the ropes made him a prized asset. That's why the Capitals, despite already having two premier Indian spinners in Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel, were eager to bring him in.

Interestingly, Nigam's rise wasn't built around his leg-spin from the start. He began as a prodigious batter at the Youth Cricket Club in Barabanki. His coach, Sarwar Nawab, pushed him into games above his age group, and Nigam held his own with the bat. He impressed in the inaugural season of the Uttar Pradesh T20 league with his power-hitting, scoring at 165.85 which included plundering 28 runs in a single over for the Lucknow Falcons against the Meerut Mavericks. It was this hitting combined with ability to chip in with a few overs of leg-spin that strengthened his case for a spot in Uttar Pradesh's Under-19 setup.

The real shift came at the National Cricket Academy (NCA), where coaches recognised his potential and pointed out the high demand in India for a leg-spinning all-rounder. That feedback changed everything. Nigam started taking his bowling seriously, but he needed a model to learn from. He found one in Yasir Shah, the wily Pakistan leg-spinner known for his control and sharp turn. Hours were spent in watching and studying how Yasir bowled, as Nigam worked on his new craft.

"There was a Test match, West Indies vs Pakistan. I watched the highlights. He had taken 10-11 wickets in that game. The way he used to bowl, I started to bowl leg spin that way. From the start, he was one of the leg spinners who I watched and felt I could bowl like and I felt there were things I could learn from him," Nigam reveals. Results followed - he had a standout season in the Uttar Pradesh T20 league 2024, finishing with 20 wickets from 11 games as a genuine leg-spinner.

On the second day of the mega auction, Nigam was away at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai with his UP side in the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy fixture against Himachal Pradesh. His mind was in Jeddah but had to wait until the end of the game to find out if he had any suitors.

As he walked back to the dressing room, there was no nervous anticipation, no anxious wait. He fished out his phone, and right at that moment, his name flashed live on the screen. Sold.

For the next five to ten minutes, everything was a blur. His mind struggled to process it all. Then came the handshakes and the messages - Rinku Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Nitish Rana walked over, offering their congratulations. "The feeling was unlike anything else, it's imprinted so vividly even now," Nigam recollects.

Once it dawned on him that he would soon enter the world of IPL through the Delhi Capitals, Nigam's mind raced with scenarios - how he would greet the senior Indian players in the squad, what it would be like to stand across from some of the biggest names in the game.

"I want to ask Suryakumar Yadav about one or two of his shots," he says. "Like his favorite one that he hits to fine leg." Then, the bowler in him takes over. "I also want to ask him what I could bowl to him more to create chances of getting him out."

That opportunity won't take long to come. His two suitors from the auction will clash soon enough, and his long-anticipated meeting with India's T20 captain will arrive. But even before that, IPL's hard lessons have begun.

In his very first game, Nigam found himself bowling to one of the most dangerous batters in the format - Nicholas Pooran, who welcomed him to the league with three sixes in an over.

"If you saw my second over, one ball was in the slot. The rest, he hit off good deliveries," Nigam reflects. "The biggest takeaway is that in the IPL, you're never set. In domestic cricket or other leagues, you know that if you hit a particular spot, you can get away with it. But against someone like Pooran - or any IPL batter - you can't afford to slip into a comfortable zone. That was the biggest lesson from that over.

"After that over, I spoke to Axar bhaiya. He also said, it's okay, no problem. You bowled well, you created a chance as well [Pooran was dropped by Sameer Rizvi]. You bowled well but he hit well too. But be ready in the next match, or even in this one, where you might have to bowl another over or two. If you don't stay positive on the field, there are chances that you'll misfield and you'll lose focus while batting too. So that was the best part that Axar kept me positive after that over. The result of that was that I was positive with the bat and I fielded well too."

Delhi Capitals have wasted no time in throwing Vipraj Nigam into the deep end, and the IPL has already given him a taste of both the dizzy highs as well as its unforgiving side. For Nigam, IPL 2025 is not just about being a promising addition to the Delhi Capitals squad, it's about making an impact. He doesn't want to just play; he wants to be a difference-maker.

A dozen wickets, 250 runs, that's the rough statistical benchmark he has set for himself. But beyond the numbers, Nigam's focus is clear. "My personal goal if I play a lot of matches for my team is that, somewhere I should have a hand in the team's win."

From an eight-year-old dreaming under the lights of the IPL to standing under them in Vizag, Nigam's journey has only just begun and it's one he hopes to savour for a long time.

"It is unexplainable," he says about the IPL world beyond the runs and the wickets. "It's a life where you're playing with such established players, travelling with them, going on team dinners, enjoying music... I can't describe it in words. It's a very different feeling and hopefully this goes on for a long time."