Anshuman Hooda: From Engineer to Fast Bowler Star
In a quiet Delhi living room, the choice sounds simple enough: office laptop or cricket ball?
Anshuman Hooda doesn’t even pretend to think about it. The 25-year-old fast bowler bursts out laughing before delivering his answer. The ball wins. Every time.
His mother, Prem Lata Singh, a primary school teacher with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, might once have preferred the laptop. For years, the family chorus was familiar: first get a degree, then get a job. Now he has both – an engineering degree from Delhi Technological University and a position at EY – and suddenly the script has changed. His elder brother, Vikram, knows why.
“Earlier, they used to say that he needed a job. Now that he has one and is doing well, she is happy,” Vikram says. Happy, and watching something unexpected unfold.
Because this season, in the third edition of the Delhi Premier League, the engineer who almost quit cricket walked away with the Purple Cap.
Twenty-two wickets. South Delhi Superstarz crowned champions. And a fast bowler who once hovered on the edge of giving up is now contemplating the opposite: walking away from the safety of a corporate career to see just how far his pace can take him.
The year he almost walked away
Not long ago, there was no hint of this future.
No age-group cricket. No Under-16 or Under-19 caps. No junior pathway through Delhi’s traditional system. Twice he turned up for Under-23 trials. Twice he went home disappointed. On paper, he was exactly what Indian cricket tends to ignore: a latecomer, with no pedigree in the scorebooks.
“I tried for Under-23 for two years, but I couldn’t make it,” Anshuman recalls. “I thought it would be very difficult because I hadn’t played any professional cricket or age-group cricket. It would have been very difficult to directly get selected for the Ranji Trophy or first-class cricket.”
So he did the sensible thing. Or at least, he tried to.
He finished his Production and Industrial Engineering degree at DTU in 2023. He sat through campus placements. He landed a job at a multinational. The path was clear: a career, a steady income, a life that made sense on a spreadsheet.
“So at that time, I thought I should quit cricket and pursue my career in engineering or something,” he says.
That is when his coach, Harish Dagar, refused to let him disappear into the corporate world.
The coach who asked for one more year
Dagar, who runs the Delhi Cricket Hub academy in Paschim Vihar and also trains youngsters at DTU, had seen enough to believe this was not just another recreational bowler.
“It was in 2023. He had just graduated. He had got the job through campus placement and was ready to move on with his life,” Dagar remembers. “I pleaded with him to give it one more year. I asked him to come to my academy four days a week for a year, and if nothing would pan out, I would let him pursue his corporate job.”
It wasn’t the first time Dagar had backed his instincts with Anshuman.
He had first spotted him back in 2019 at university. Not in whites, not with a polished run-up, but playing tennis-ball cricket. What grabbed his attention was the raw material: the way the body moved, the arm speed, the natural rhythm.
“His body alignment was natural. His strength was natural, and his pace was natural. But he didn't have enough strength in his body initially. That's why I told him that if you don't maintain your fitness along with your natural pace, you will face problems,” says Dagar.
The problem? Life was already busy. A demanding job. Training sessions squeezed into late evenings. Gym work after office hours. Recovery time sacrificed.
“He was also busy with his job. He couldn't always take proper sessions. He would come at night, then have to go to the gym and take practice sessions. It was very hectic,” Dagar says.
So the coach went to work on the one area he could control: the mind.
“I worked on his mind 80-85 per cent. I made him mentally strong. I told him never to think that he was tired or burdened. Once I worked on his mindset and the roadmap was clear in front of him, he knew what he had to do. At one point he had to focus on fitness, at another he had to do his job, and then he had to come to me for his sessions.”
The roadmap was in place. What he needed was a stage.
From roller skates to the new ball
Anshuman’s story doesn’t begin with a leather ball at all. It begins with wheels.
Growing up, he was a national-level roller skater. Cricket was there, somewhere in the background – his elder brother Vikram played – but it wasn’t the sport that defined him. Even his academic choices followed Vikram: science, then engineering.
Cricket, though, took its own route.
“I just started playing in college, and that’s when I got into leather-ball cricket professionally, playing for the college team and all. That’s when I fell in love with bowling fast, getting wickets and the aggression that comes with it. I just loved bowling fast,” he says.
That love had to fight for space in his life.
Fast bowling is unforgiving. It’s not just about running in and letting it go; it’s about what the body absorbs every single time you hit the crease.
“Fast bowling is not a very comfortable activity for the body. You accelerate, then your whole body has to absorb the impact before you bowl. It definitely takes a toll on the body,” Anshuman says.
Niggles arrived. Soreness lingered. But the answer, for him, never changed.
“It was just the love for the sport and the love for bowling fast that kept me motivated and helped me come back stronger every time.”
Building a fast bowler, not just a fast ball
Behind the scenes, Dagar treated the project like a professional assignment.
Periodisation. Rest. Strength and conditioning. Workload management. Diet. Physiotherapy. Technical skills. This wasn’t about chasing a headline speed. It was about building a body and a method that could survive at high pace.
Anshuman had to develop a stock delivery he could trust, then add the tools that separate a net tearaway from a match-winner: leg-cutters, off-cutters, subtle variations that still land on a probing line.
The breakthrough came with the Delhi Premier League.
In 2024, he got his first real opening with South Delhi. The chances were limited early on. One spell changed that. He did enough to be noticed, to be trusted. The next season, the door opened wider.
This year, he kicked it down.
A five-wicket haul. Regular breakthroughs. Twenty-two wickets in the season. South Delhi Superstarz lifting the title with a 25-year-old quick leading the attack. Suddenly, IPL franchises started to look at him as a net bowler and trial option.
For a player who once thought of quitting, the climb had been rapid.
The moment it truly hit home came in a quiet conversation with a man who has seen it all.
“Shikhar Dhawan himself, the team owner, surprised me. He came and we had a little conversation. He gave me some very good tips and a direction to work towards from here,” Anshuman says.
Dhawan later praised him in an Instagram story. For a fast bowler from outside the usual pipeline, it felt like validation.
It also sounded like a challenge.
Chasing 140 – and beyond
At 140 kmph, Anshuman already has the one quality that makes selectors sit up: genuine pace. His coach believes there’s more in the tank. The bowler does not hide his intent.
“Definitely, speed is what I want. If I can, I will definitely look to bowl even faster and build the strength and skills to do that, while making sure there is no compromise on accuracy and line,” he says.
That last part matters.
Pace opens the door. Accuracy keeps it from slamming shut. The next phase of his development will not be measured only by the speed gun but by how long he can sustain that pace, especially in red-ball cricket.
“These are the things we prepare for. Who bowls in a four-day or five-day game and bowls long spells with the same effort? That is what I am preparing for. If I get an opportunity, I will definitely do that.”
The ambition is laid out in simple, escalating steps.
- First, break into Delhi’s set-up.
- Then establish himself in first-class cricket.
- Then earn an IPL contract.
- Then, if the dream holds, India.
“The eventual goal is to play and win matches for the country. That is my ultimate goal,” he says.
Job security vs the speed gun
Away from the nets, another contest plays out in Anshuman’s life. It has nothing to do with outswing or yorkers.
On one side sits an engineering degree from DTU and a job at a respected multinational, complete with a promotion before the DPL season. On the other, a sport that offers no guarantees.
Working from home has helped him juggle both worlds so far. Online meetings and spreadsheets by day; gym sessions, bowling drills and match preparation by night. But the more his cricket rises, the more that balance starts to look like a temporary compromise rather than a long-term solution.
“Currently, I have joined back,” he says of his job. “But as I have seen some substantial progress in my cricket in recent months and in this tournament, I might, in the coming times, shift my whole focus to cricket and give it my all.”
For someone who once considered quitting the game entirely, it is a significant shift.
It is also an irony he recognises. The engineer who learned to manage competing demands may soon have to strip it all back and choose one.
He insists he knows which way his heart leans.
“I will give it my all. Let’s see what happens ahead.”
For Delhi’s batsmen, and perhaps one day for those far beyond, the more pressing question might be different: how much faster can this late-blooming engineer really get?
