In the summer of 2023, 17-year-old Yash Raj Punja was set to leave for university in the UK when a short holiday in Bengaluru opened the doors to the IPL. How Punja went from preparing for medical school to bowling ripping legspin for Rajasthan Royals is the stuff dreams are of.
"I wasn't even planning to pursue cricket professionally in India," says Punja, who was on his summer holidays then, visiting Bengaluru from Abu Dhabi, where he lived with his family. "I wanted to train for a couple of weeks. My dad knew Kartik Jeshwant [former Karnataka captain], so I joined his set-up [Six Academy, formerly the Dravid-Padukone Centre of Excellence] for a fortnight."
Not expecting to be able to balance medical school with a career in cricket, which he played semi-seriously, Punja was simply looking to keep fit and busy during his vacation until one thing led to another and he was offered a chance to become an IPL net bowler.
"It wasn't easy to come to terms with the thought of entirely quitting cricket," Punja says. "But a strange feeling that somehow I'd find a way back into cricket kept coming back. My mind kept trying to work out possibilities. If I studied in England, could I eventually qualify to play county cricket or play in the [T20] Blast?
"Looking back now, it almost feels natural that Royals found me when they did."
Having impressed the coaches at Jeswant's academy, Punja discovered a Royals camp was scheduled for a week later in the city. Although he knew right away that he wanted to stay on in Bengaluru, his parents - who were settled in the UAE - needed some convincing. "Eventually it happened," he smiles.
His accuracy and ability to turn the ball had caught the scouts' eye, but the biggest USP was his height. Standing 6ft 5in, Punja's release points helped extract the kind of awkward bounce few legspinners could. He made the Royals' shortlist, joined a second camp at the team's training base in Talegaon, Maharashtra, and signed on as a net bowler ahead of IPL 2024.
Met this 18 year old @rajasthanroyals leg spinning net bowler yesterday as we travelled to Chennai. I am 6ft 6 1/2inchs tall. And he has me covered so he is at least 6ft 6 inches tall. His name is Yash & he is from Bengaluru. pic.twitter.com/k0cDzb5E7g
— Ian Raphael Bishop (@irbishi) May 24, 2024
That season, Punja's height made an impression almost everywhere he went. Ian Bishop, the former West Indies fast bowler-turned broadcaster, stopped him at an airport for a photo. Bishop couldn't believe he was looking at a legspinner.
"I was just shocked that Ian Bishop wanted a picture with me," Punja says. "When I made my IPL debut this year, his [social media] post [about the interaction] resurfaced again. That made it even more special."
Punja played eight matches for Royals in IPL 2026, taking nine wickets at an economy of 9.3, going from "merely hoping to make my debut" to "playing more games than I'd ever imagined".
"It really felt like something that just fell into my lap, and I'm grateful for it."
Punja has followed in the footsteps of his brother Yodhin, who climbed up the ranks to become one of UAE's youngest debutants at 16.
"He was my first hero," Punja says of his brother, who is seven years older. "By the time I got into my serious cricketing years and joined an academy, he was already playing for the UAE men's team. We did have plenty of battles growing up, though. We'd use the corridor in our apartment as our little cricket ground, taking turns batting and bowling to each other. A lot of my early development happened there."
Injuries held Yodhin back and he instead chose a scholarship to play cricket alongside his studies at university in the UK. But while bidding goodbye to his cricketing aspirations, he asked their parents to go all in on his younger brother.
For Punja, playing for UAE wasn't a far-fetched dream given the small talent pool, but what he wanted was a taste of the IPL.
"That's what I grew up watching, whether it was Virat Kohli at RCB or Lasith Malinga at Mumbai Indians. Watching that kind of high-octane cricket became an obsession. Maybe I believe a little in the power of manifestation and the law of attraction too. Looking back now, I feel that somewhere subconsciously I was always trying to pave a path towards that dream. Everything I did [from 2024 onwards] was with the hope that one day I'd somehow get an opportunity to play in the IPL."
In June last year, Punja moved to Bengaluru to play club cricket.
"It was a big switch," he says of the move from Abu Dhabi. "Not because the standard in the UAE is any less, but simply because there's so much more cricket happening in India. Here, you're training almost every morning and you can end up playing three or four matches in a week. Back home, you might play once a week or even once every two weeks. Just having that volume of cricket gives you far more experience and exposure, which naturally helps you improve.
"The other difference is that you're competing against players who've been doing this for years. Everyone is incredibly talented, so the first few matches were about adapting to a different level of cricket and understanding the different skill set it demanded. It took a little time to adjust, but once I settled in, it became about trying to deliver results as consistently as possible."
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Punja played for Vijaya CC - a club that was once home to Rahul Dravid - and was signed by Hubli Tigers for the Maharaja Trophy, Karnataka's domestic T20 competition. There, he emerged as the second-highest wicket-taker (23 wickets in ten matches) and earned call-ups to trial with four IPL teams.
"I couldn't make it to the Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad trials because of [age-group] state matches, but overall I felt I had done enough to at least earn a base-price contract. But even before the [2026] auction, I had a feeling Rajasthan Royals would pick me because I'd been with them as a net bowler for two and a half years.
"They knew how I'd been progressing and what level my bowling was at. They were also the franchise I wanted to play for, so I was really glad it happened. Once I got picked [for Rs 30 lakh or US$33,000 approx], we almost immediately started discussing camps. At that point, I was bowling really well and was in a good space mentally, so I was optimistic that I'd get an opportunity."
That opportunity finally came on April 19 against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens. Coming in as an Impact Player, in his fourth over, Punja dismissed Ramandeep Singh with a googly and finished with figures of 1 for 25. Fittingly, it was Bishop who was on air for the wicket.
"The best thing I did was not think too much about the occasion. I didn't think about the number of runs on the board or worry too much about the wicket because losing sleep over it wasn't going to change anything," Punja says. "It was really about trusting my skills, backing my preparation."
Punja credits the RR management with taking much of the load off him. It helped that they had seen a fair bit of him over a two-year period leading into the season.
"They tailor each player's experience, whether it's nutrition, recovery or game plans. Everything is explained so clearly that you're completely convinced by the plan before you step onto the field," he says.
Ahead of the match against Punjab Kings in New Chandigarh, where his 2 for 41 helped Royals chase a target of 223, as opposed to something like 240, Punja spent time with the team analyst and came up with a plan to float the ball up to tempt allrounder Cooper Connolly to hit across the line.
"I'd seen him get out in a similar manner before and felt it was worth trying again. And it worked. Similarly in the Mumbai Indians [match], Will Jacks' dismissal was something we'd planned before."
Punja also got to expand his knowledge by interacting with other legspinners in the game. "Yuzvendra Chahal has always been my favourite bowler. I try to emulate his consistency, his game awareness and his accuracy wherever I can. I've also admired Anil Kumble and was fortunate enough to speak to him a few weeks ago and pick his brain about the game. Beyond that, there are so many legspinners I look up to - Varun Chakravarthy, Rashid Khan and Ravi Bishnoi. I've tried to take little bits from each of them and incorporate those into my own bowling.
"One conversation that really stood out this season was with Ravi Bishnoi. When he was 20 or 21 and doing so well in the IPL, I was around 14 or 15, and as a young legspinner, he was exactly where I wanted to be one day. There was even a phase where I'd copy his action - coming in from wide and jumping into the crease, so being able to spend two or three months talking to him was amazing. He was incredibly open with his knowledge, whether it was about game readiness, the mental side of the game or developing my skill set. He was always motivating me and trying to put me on the right path.
"The conversation with Rashid Khan also stayed with me. We played against [his side] Gujarat Titans, and he spoke about how he generates pace through the ball and varies it from his legbreak. There were so many little insights like that throughout the season."
While he's currently in rehab for an injury he suffered in the Maharaja Trophy this year, Punja hopes to break into the Karnataka state set-up next.
"I feel like I took a lot away [from the IPL], especially in understanding just how high the standard of world cricket really is. It's not something you can fully appreciate by watching from outside. You have to be part of it, play alongside these cricketers and compete against them to realise the level they're operating at.
"As a bowler, there's virtually no room for error. Your line and length have to be so precise because even a small mistake gets punished. Bowling to players like Hardik Pandya and Heinrich Klaasen taught me a lot.
"I had conversations with Hardik bhai as well, and one piece of advice that stayed with me was not to chase a wicket every ball, especially on flat pitches. He said that sometimes, instead of attacking all the time, your job is to restrict the batter, because good defensive bowling can itself become an attacking option. If you keep building pressure, eventually the batter is forced into making a mistake. Going forward, I want to work on the shortcomings I identified this year, improve my overall game and keep getting fitter and become a better fielder before the next season comes around."
In three years Punja has traded a life that would have been all about libraries and student halls for one of packed stadiums and dressing rooms full of cricket's biggest stars. And it is a journey he could scarcely have imagined.