Left-arm pacer Chetan Sakariya, who is representing Rajasthan Royals in the ongoing season of IPL, revealed that he was inspired by Junaid Khan’s bowling spell in Chennai during Pakistan’s tour of India in 2012.

While speaking in an interview with CricTracker, the 22-year-old said he tried to copy Pakistan pacer’s bowling action and has a similar jump in his run-up as the Men in Green’s left-arm pacer.

“As a kid, you start idolizing anyone who plays well and is famous. In 2010 [2012] when Pakistan came to India, Junaid Khan bowled really well, even though we had players like Virat Kohli, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, and MS Dhoni. But Junaid dismissed them all. So I became his fan and tried to copy his run-up,” Sakariya said.

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“If you noticed, he used to take a small jump before approaching the crease. I wanted to bowl just like him, but couldn’t copy his entire action. In the attempt to copy his action, my own action got formed. However, I did copy the jump!” he added.

Junaid, who took 4/43 in Chennai, was the joint highest wicket-taker (8) along with Saeed Ajmal during Pakistan’s ODI series win against India in 2012.