Swings of fortune: Vaibhav Arora's rousing journey in cricket

"I packed my stuff from Chandigarh and left for home," Vaibhav Arora, the Kolkata Knight Riders pacer, tells Cricbuzz. Hailing from Ambala, a small town around 50 kilometers from Chandigarh, Arora wanted to give up on the sport as a 21-year-old. His career was going nowhere.

He couldn't make the cut for the Punjab Under-19 side and he couldn't find a place in the senior district-level teams. He had waited long enough to conclude that he wouldn't make it as a professional cricketer.

Moreover, his family had suffered a massive financial crisis owing to losses in their dairy business. Keeping up with the expenses of his training in Chandigarh wasn't feasible.

It is a far cry from how he has progressed with KKR in the IPL over the last two seasons. In 2025, unlike 2018, he has hope and has, as he says, "everything I could've asked for".

After quite a standoff over the pitch at Eden Gardens, Kolkata Knight Riders had their win and got a surface where their biggest strength - the spin attack - could lay its charm against Sunrisers Hyderabad. However, even before the spinners could come into operation, Aroraripped through SRH's top order with a fine exhibition of swing bowling, and settled the fate of the contest in the powerplay itself. He didn't wait for the pitch to play its part.

Waiting is not his scene anymore.

It was last season, at the age of 26, that Vaibhav realised that he was good enough to challenge the best of the batters around the world. The reason was simple: a campaign that started with a three-wicket return in his first match, picked up momentum and ended with a victorious campaign for the team and 11 wickets to his kitty. Whether publicly celebrated or not, he knew he had played his part.

It may have been a season where much attention went towards KKR's strong spin attack and their explosive batters, and some bits towards its coaching staff. However, Vaibhav along with his other inexperienced Indian pace partner, Harshit Rana, held the pace attack tight while the experienced Mitchell Starc was finding his form for most of the league stage.

Starc showed up in the critical knockout games while Rana, in the next few months, moved up the ranks and played for the national team. Meanwhile, Arora continued to be deployed as an Impact Substitute.

Playing the biggest part in turning this around has been his coach Ravi Kumar Varma who was the first to dissuade Arora from quitting cricket. Aware that his financial situation back home had him worked up, he urged Arora to return. He even offered free accommodation at his hostel and free training at his academy to make his plea stronger.

"He believed in me, and asked me to be patient," Arora says, recalling the conversation with his coach. "So I thought I will give it another try, maybe for one or two years to see if something comes out of it."

In his bid to revive his career, Arora shifted base to Himachal Pradesh in 2018, and, within a year went on to represent the Under-23 side of Himachal.

The wait till then wasn't easy. There were moments of uncertainty, and he would again go back to his coach, who would calm his nerves. "Every time there would be a reason for me to lose my patience, I would go and talk to him. He helped me through that phase. He would keep saying, 'You can't quit like this. You just keep playing."

There was another reason that kept him motivated all along through that impatience - the rise of Arshdeep Singh, his long-time friend with whom he played college-level and age-group cricket. "Arsh's career rise gave me that confidence that I could also be where he is in his career. It gave me the motivation to keep working hard."

The patience and the hard work paid off. By the end of 2019, he made his first-class debut. And within two years, he also featured in Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. In between the red and white ball debuts, he was also picked by Punjab Kings to work as a net bowler in the 2020 IPL season.

The rise from not even being able to play district-level cricket to bowling to the top international players took a matter of less than two years, and big, drastic lessons kept coming his way.

"When I was a net bowler with Punjab, I realised while I had all the skills, I wasn't using my variations at the right time."

On and off the field, these lessons kept coming thick and fast, and he was happy to absorb them all. In the KKR setup, it was the observation of how senior pacer Mitchell Starc carried himself outside the field of play ."With Mitchell Starc, I learnt the importance of being confident, how to improve on your weaknesses, on how to maintain a lifestyle journal - to keep a schedule and be disciplined about it. No matter what happened, he was extremely disciplined with his routine. All that effort that he puts in in his training shows up at the ground."

His latest lessons, though are coming from Dwayne Bravo, the KKR Mentor, who is sharpening his senses of bowling in the death overs, and how to play with the field settings. His extensive learning has not escaped the attention of even the coaches. Ottis Gibson, the KKR assistant coach, heaped praise on his development, along with that of Rana.

In a matter of a few years, life has turned around quite a bit. "From not being able to afford the rent of my house to now having everything that I could've wished for, a lot has changed."

Now that the wait and the perseverance look good, what would the 27-year-old Vaibhav tell his 21-year-old self?

He laughs as he jogs his memory back to his old self, the one that was impatient, the one who was insecure of the future, the one who was living the hard life without he promised rewards. "I would say, keep working hard irrespective of what the situation is and don't stop believing in yourself. One day, you will be rewarded for it."

Life in the fast lane may not have been fast enough for Vaibhav, but with the benefit of hindsight, he isn't complaining.