Gurinder Sandhu’s golden summer and slice of history after three years in the wilderness

He hadn’t played Sheffield Shield in three years, one-day domestic cricket in two and his hopes of adding to his 50 BBL appearances looked decidedly slim.

Now as he prepares to take the new ball in Queensland’s last regular Sheffield Shield match of the season, Sandhu boasts genuine claims to being domestic cricket’s best bowler in 2021/22.

His even 50 wickets across all formats, collecting two white-ball hat-tricks (one one-day, one BBL) and two Sheffield Shield five-wicket hauls along the way, sit behind only the ageless Peter Siddle.

The two hat-tricks he collected were each history making. With his List A effort, he became the first bowler with two Australian one-day domestic hat-tricks. With his BBL haul, he became the first bowler in the 170-year history of Australian domestic cricket to boast three hat-tricks.

To think it started with just an invitation to join the Bulls for pre-season training and nothing more. And to think Sandhu had “definitely” considered life after cricket, but not giving up the game or the ghost of its highest level by any stretch.

“I’ve been told before you’re never as far away as you think you are,” Sandhu says simply. “At the same time you’re never as close as you think you are either.”

It’s an adage that applies aptly to every stage of Sandhu’s career.

Debuting in all three domestic formats before his 20th birthday and capped twice in ODI cricket before turning 22, Sandhu thrived in his early years as a professional cricketer. Everything he could have hoped for seemed within touching distance.

You’re never as close as you think you are.

By 24, having slid down NSW’s fast-bowling pecking order, Sandhu relocated to Tasmania for more playing opportunities.

By 26, Sandhu found himself without a state contract. With Siddle and Jackson Bird, bowlers with similar skill sets to himself, both on Cricket Tasmania’s books, he left for Queensland believing he had a better chance of getting a game.

By 28, from the outside looking in, Sandhu’s career seemed to be hanging by a thread.

He did not get a game across his first summer in Queensland but if Sandhu ever thought about giving up on the dream going into this season, he does not let on.

“Having played for Australia in 2015, that really helped. So far in my career that has been my best. When I’m at my best, I’ve played for Australia so if I can do it once, I can do it again.

“If I can get somewhere near my best I can still play domestic cricket in Australia and do really well. So I always had that in the back of my mind.”

He had come to Queensland looking to force the selection door open via grade cricket. He was always going to give himself more than a summer.

“I was definitely going to give it a big crack. It might not have worked out this year, it might have been next year or the year after. I was definitely giving it a good two-three-four-year crack to see how I can, or if I can get back playing Sheffield Shield cricket, one-day cricket, Big Bash League cricket again.

“Thankfully it happened in the second year.”

Of course, without the cushion of a state contract, Sandhu had to make ends meet.

With the help of his grade side South Brisbane, he turned to his other cricketing passion to pay the bills, running coaching clinics for people from ages 12 to 18.

“I was coaching pretty much every afternoon and getting my training done during the day. Whether it be going to the gym, going for a running session, having a bowl, having a hit or a bit of a mixture.

“I’d have until 2:30-3pm to get all that done and then I’d head to coaching and coach for three to four hours in the afternoon.

“As long as someone wants to get better and learn stuff about cricket, I’m more than happy to help them. Like I said, it’s something I quite enjoy and I think I can do it well.”

He still coaches when he has the time nowadays.

In a strange way, having to fend for himself turned out to be a blessing. He was able to tailor his own program and the onus for success and failure was solely on him.

“It just dumbed things down really. No contract. It was just me, myself and I. I was training, I was doing all my stuff whenever I wanted to, however I wanted to.

“Not having a contract wasn’t good, but it was good at the same time. I got to organise my own days, train how I wanted to train, when I wanted to train and do all the things the way I wanted to do them.

“That way it was all on me. So if things did go well or didn’t go well, I had myself to blame or to thank. That really helped in terms of just taking things on myself and making sure things were right.”

With that he found a much needed balance to the way he approached the game.

Looking back on his younger days, when success was seemingly around every corner, Sandhu says he was simply enjoying the ride but had no idea how to keep it going. As he got older, he learnt what it took to be a professional cricketer but the smile had disappeared.

“That time was kind of a blur. Things were just happening for whatever reason at the time. Obviously I was bowling well but I wasn’t sure what I was doing or how I was doing it.

“I was just a young kid having a lot of fun and being very relaxed as you are when you’re younger. You don’t know what can go wrong, you probably don’t even think about it – you’re there, you’re enjoying it, you’re having fun.

“That’s something I’m trying to have a bit more of this year, I’m just trying to be as relaxed as I can and make sure I’m having a lot of fun and enjoying it. For me personally that’s when I do my best, when I’m being myself and just taking that attitude into training and playing the game.

“Playing state cricket, playing domestic cricket, it’s pretty hard. Especially Sheffield Shield cricket. I wasn’t enjoying it, I wasn’t having as much fun. Everything became very serious.

“I felt like I always had to perform, which is what I had to do, but I wasn’t having that much fun. Then put that together with not knowing how I needed to prepare, what I needed to do for myself to get the best out of me.

“Those two things put together probably helped me turn in the right direction.”

Queensland’s set-up under coach Wade Seccombe has suited Sandhu down to the ground, from well before a drought-breaking October dismissal of Tasmania’s teammate Tim Ward, his first Sheffield Shield wicket in three years.

“OK, I can get wickets at this level,” Sandhu told himself afterwards, doing exactly that ever since. Two matches later, 6-57 against South Australia made for the second five-wicket haul of his first-class career and his first since debuting in 2013.

It was backed up in quick time with 5-65 against Victoria, with 22 Shield wickets at 18.04 from just four games making this comfortably his best first-class season to date.

“I’ve just dumbed everything down and gone back to basics,” he says of the uptick. “In the past few years I’ve been trying to bowl too fast and trying to bowl in a way that probably doesn’t suit my action and my skill set.

“So this year I’ve just gone you know what, I’m going to go back to doing the things that I know I can do and that work for me. So just going back to the basics and trusting and believing.”

It hasn’t hurt his limited overs game either. Twelve wickets at 15.25 made him the One-Day Cup’s second highest wicket-taker, with another hat-trick making him the first bowler to have two alongside his name in Australian one-day domestic cricket.

The last man contracted by Sydney Thunder going into BBL 11, he was among the side’s best bowlers for the tournament, taking 18 wickets at 16.55 with an economy of 7.6. Incredibly, he took a hat-trick there too.

Having gone into the 2021/22 season with the door closing on his professional career, he will finish it with his prospects looking as healthy as they have since his early days at NSW.

Like every domestic cricketer in the country, he’d love to pull on Australian colours again but his focus is on the present

“I’m 28 and there are some bowlers going around who are 34-35, so I’d love to be able to play for as long as I can.

“It would be awesome to try and get back and play for Australia again. It would be awesome to add to those one-dayers and maybe play some T20 cricket for Australia as well and just get back to playing some good cricket and see where it takes me.

“Hopefully keep playing well for the Queensland Bulls and from there you never know. It’s not something you think about, it’s just something that happens. Just try and keep doing my thing, working hard, training, and performing for the Bulls.”

As he said himself: “You’re never as far away as you think you are. At the same time you’re never as close as you think you are either.”