He comes from a home where success in academics is much sought after, but he knew from the start that was not the route he wanted to take
Saumy Pandey was brought up in a household where the emphasis was on academics. His parents are teachers at an intermediate college not far from their house, in a small town called Bharatpur in Madhya Pradesh. His sister is preparing for the IAS (Indian Administrative Services) examination, and his maternal uncle and aunt are officers in the PCS (Provincial Civil Services).
When he was a kid, the cricket would be turned on on television at home only by chance. When he was about five years old, his family priest had predicted – much like his scholarly relatives – that Saumy would excel in his studies and go on to become a doctor or an engineer. On hearing this, though, Saumy started to cry: despite the focus on academics all around him, he was already into cricket and wanted to make a career out of it.
Fast-forward a decade and a half, and now the entire extended family got together – with planning, not by chance – to watch the cricket. They wanted to watch their own Saumy bowl left-arm spin at the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa, where India finished runners-up on the weekend. Saumy finished as the joint-second-highest wicket-taker in the tournament, with a tally of 18 from seven innings, at an average of just 10.27 and an economy rate of 2.68. This was the best bowling performance for India at an U-19 World Cup – Saumy went past Ravi Bishnoi‘s tally of 17 from the 2020 edition.
