Follow UsIf Harsh Aghav knew that his father’s advice about going out and playing sport to reduce his weight and make him fit would one day lead to one of his dreams coming true just at the age of 18, then he would have listened to him earlier than he eventually did.
Harsh, a middle-order batter who likes to bowl right-arm off-spin when given an opportunity, will be sharing a dressing room with none other than back-to-back Indian Premier League (IPL) finalist skipper Shreyas Iyer, who might even have back-to-back IPL trophies to his name too, by the time Harsh gets to meet his idol during the T20 Mumbai League 2025, which will begin just a day after the end of the IPL 2025.
“I am really excited to play under Shreyas Iyer. He has been my idol since I started batting in the middle order,” Harsh said with a beaming smile in an exclusive interview with cricket.com while sitting in the ground, where he had just had a net session for the South Bombay (SoBo) Mumbai Falcons, one of the eight teams in the tournament.
Harsh, usually a reserved boy who likes to let his bat do the talking, was extra-cheerful all the time at the prospect of meeting his idol. “I am grateful to be a part of Mumbai Falcons and from the start I wanted to be a part of it because of Shreyas Iyer, so I am happy and hope for the best,” he said, looking all excited about the league, which will have four matches being played in a single day throughout the league stage.
Having hit centuries, those big ones in the Mumbai maidans and gymkhanas, with the notable one being his 176 and a partnership of 348 runs with Rohan Karandikar while playing for Dilip Vengsarkar Cricket Academy during the Santosh Kumar Ghosh U-16 Trophy in Mumbai in 2022.
It was that innings and many others during that season that got Harsh the captaincy of the Mumbai U-16 team for the 2022-23 Vijay Merchant Trophy, where he led them to the semifinal, where they lost to eventual winners Punjab.
So where did the love for the game begin for Harsh? This story would take us back to the first line of the interview and Harsh, who was reluctant to go out and play and, according to himself, was gaining a lot of weight.
Talking about his beginnings, the Mumbai Falcons batter, who scored a 25-ball 60 in a practice match, said, "I was born in Maharashtra. My father is a police officer, so he got transferred to Mumbai, and as a kid, I used to be fat, so my dad said that I should play cricket to get fit and the journey started from there."
“I have had two idols growing up and both are from Mumbai, Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer,” he added.
Calling the T20 Mumbai League a good platform for Mumbai cricketers, Harsh, who was all of 12 years old when the league was last played in 2019, said, “Being one of the youngest players in the team, I get to learn a lot from all the senior players. I think it's a good platform for all the Mumbai cricketers to perform and then think of playing the IPL.”
Harsh could not be called overestimating when he talked about the chance of playing in the IPL because state leagues have indeed proved the nursery of future IPL stars.
The likes of Priyansh Arya, Digvesh Rathi, Vipraj Nigam, Vignesh Puthur and Prince Yadav, guys who have become household names since the 2025 IPL season, were just local club players one year before, plying their trade in state leagues like the Delhi Premier League, UP T20, Kerala Cricket League etc.
But there is a long gap between the next IPL season and the end of the T20 Mumbai League this season. Harsh, who led the Mumbai Under-16 team in the Vijay Merchant Trophy 2022-23 and graduated to the Mumbai U-19 team for the Cooch Behar Trophy in 2024-25, would look to take the next step towards representing Mumbai at the highest level-the Ranji Trophy.
However, instead of rushing towards that goal, he is 'believing in the process’ and ‘controlling the controllable’, two phrases which have now been institutionalised in Indian cricket, ever since the great MS Dhoni began using them.
“I don’t think about that (call from the senior Mumbai team) much. I just try to enjoy my game, believe in the process and control the things that are in my hand,” Harsh said about his preparations and future ambitions.