Suryakumar Yadav and some of his team-mates from the Duleep Trophy were in the dressing room watching a zeher bowler on TV.
This bowler had been with them two weeks ago - except he had played for the other team and picked up nine wickets. He added two more when he went to Chennai to play in the Test match against Bangladesh.
Saurasish Lahiri, who was bowling coach of the India B team, recalls the moment, Suryakumar watching Akash Deep bowl and instinctively saying, "in that typical Bombay style in which he talks, Sir, yeh toh zeher hai. He has got so much of venom in his bowling, that's what he meant to say."
Lahiri has kept an eye on Akash ever since his move up from club cricket in Bengal. After a first-class career that spanned 100 matches, but in his first year as a coach for the state's Under-23 team, Lahiri found himself sticking his neck out for Akash, bringing him on tour even though he was injured. There were questions about carrying someone who was a complete unknown - Akash hadn't played any representative age-group cricket, any competitive cricket - and now wasn't even fit enough to take part in the matches. Akash spent 21 days at the KSCA tournament in Bengaluru just getting himself right because Lahiri knew, when he got himself right, "yeh zeher bowler hai".
"I saw him for the first time at the CAB [Cricket Association of Bengal] indoor nets," Lahiri said. "There was not much of a run-up for the fast bowler there because normally in indoor nets, you bowl just to get the rhythm, to get a feel of bowling. But Akash, from that short run-up, he was absolutely… Very expressive pace. He was really troubling all the batters."
This week, when Akash bowled in Chennai, the speedgun showed he was in the mid-to-late 130s [kph] range. And yet the two batters that he took down were both late on their shots. Something didn't add up. It felt like the CAB nets all over again. Where was he getting this pace?
"From his arm action," Lahiri said. "The arm rotation is so fast that the moment he releases the ball, there is a whip effect on the ball. In tennis we have a word, whip effect. When the ball leaves the racquet in tennis, it's got a lot of spin, and it just skids through the court. Akash has the same whip effect."
He holds the ball lightly in his fingers. His wrist snaps it into the pitch. The fingers roll down the seam. All of this happens on the back of a quick arm action. And it creates the backspin that helps Akash lose less of his pace after the ball bounces. Andrew Flintoff was especially good at this and that's why he seemed to catch the Australian batters on the hop quite a lot during the 2005 Ashes. They seemed set to receive a ball at one pace, but the backspin meant it was onto them a fraction quicker.
Akash had another thing going for him against Bangladesh. To both Zakir Hasan and Mominul Haque, he held the ball, which was just eight overs old at that point, with the shiny side on the inside. That usually means it would move in the opposite direction, towards the slips. These didn't. They pitched and came into the left-hand batter. Because the seam wasn't upright. It was wobbling.
When used well, the wobble-seam delivery creates a fair bit of unpredictability because there's a chance the ball would pitch on the seam - in which case it could deviate any which way - and there's an equal chance it would pitch on the leather and not move as much. Mohammed Siraj, who has a natural outswinger, uses the wobble seam to target a right-hander's inside edge. Akash, who has a natural inswinger, seems to be getting his to go the other way.
Lahiri is delighted with the way his charge is progressing. "I was with him when he got his first call-up to play England," Lahiri said. "We were playing a Ranji Trophy game in Trivandrum. This time [ahead of the Bangladesh series], I was with him in the Duleep Trophy. He was playing for India A but we were together all the time. We were in the same hotel. He was selected on 8th September, right? And 9th September was my birthday so he just got a cake to me and said, 'Sir, this is your birthday cake', but I said 'okay, but both of us will cut the cake because it's a double celebration.' Mukesh [Kumar] was there as well. It was very nice."
It is still very early in Akash's career, even at the domestic level. He only made his first-class debut five years ago. The graph that is tracking upwards now will hit a roadblock at some point. There will be challenges but they might just pale in comparison to the ones he has already come through, like losing his father and his brother within the space of six months, and moving across the country to pursue a career that some from his home in Sasaram, Bihar, didn't think well of. His mother had to be careful sending him out to play because she was worried if people saw him they would say "yeh toh aawara mawwali hi banega [he is spoilt and will become a rogue]."
Thanks to Akash's hard work, though, what people are actually saying is "yeh zeher bowler hai."