Jatinder Singh Century: Oman Captain Who Recovered in Chandigarh Scores 130 vs Nepal

Oman captain Jatinder Singh scored 130 vs Nepal in ICC CWC League Two — a record ODI score for Oman — after a career-saving rehabilitation in Kharar and Chandigarh. Rain stopped play. Oman won the match by 102 runs (DLS Method)

North Desk Bureau

Chandigarh, April 29

When Jatinder Singh walked to the crease on Wednesday morning at the Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground in Kirtipur, Nepal, very few outside of Oman’s dressing room would have known the full story behind the man. By the time he walked back — 130 runs later, with Oman’s highest-ever individual ODI score to his name — the story deserved to be told.

Oman posted 305 in Match 100 of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup League Two, and it was built almost entirely around their 36-year-old captain, Jatinder Singh. His 130 not only (off 96 balls containing 15 fours and five sixes) broke his own previous record of 118 for Oman in ODIs but also set a new mark for boundaries in an innings by an Oman batter. Nepal were left needing 306 in 50 overs, a target that felt every bit as commanding as the innings that set it. Rain stopped play and Oman won the match by 102 runs as DLS method came into play.

Jatinder Singh got the player of the match for his stupendous 130.

But the more remarkable number is not 130. It is 105.

That is how many days Jatinder Singh spent in rehabilitation in Chandigarh and its surrounding areas in 2024, after a sciatic nerve compression in his spinal cord threatened to end his cricket career — and nearly did.

THE KHARAR CHAPTER

In the summer of 2024, Jatinder Singh was in a desperate state. The pain from his nerve injury had become so debilitating that bending down was a struggle and walking was slow and deliberate. He had been left out of the Oman squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup. One evening, he sat with his wife Ramandeep Kaur and told her he was considering retirement.

She refused to hear it.

Her message to him was clear: the years he had given to cricket were far greater than one injury. He had to push through it. If he found his rhythm again, she told him, nothing could stop him.

Her words set him on the path to Chandigarh.

Through a team-mate, Jatinder Singh was connected to Dr Gaurav Sharma, a sports science specialist who works with IPL franchise Gujarat Titans. What he thought might take a month took 105 days. Dr Sharma identified the problem as postural — the smaller stabilising muscles needed to be strengthened so the nerve pain would not return.

Jatinder Singh set up a base in the Chandigarh suburb of Kharar, travelling daily into the city for treatment sessions. His evenings were spent at a strength and conditioning facility near the Mohali cricket stadium, working with coach Jitendra Billa. For three months, this was his routine: clinic, gym, rest, repeat.

The tricity cricket community, as it so often does with those connected to the game, rallied around him. Former India fast bowler and then-Oman bowling consultant Aavishkar Salvi arranged for Punjab cricketer Baltej Singh to offer Jatinder his vacant apartment for the duration of his stay. When Jatinder Singh was ready to return to the crease — after nearly eight weeks of treatment — Salvi again stepped in, connecting him with Punjab cricketer Jassinder Singh, who organised nets and a throw-down specialist for him to resume batting.

It was a slow rebuild. The body was willing before the mind fully was. Every net session carried the ghost of the old pain. But gradually, over weeks of disciplined work in and around Mohali, the fear faded.

By the end of September 2024, Jatinder was back. Within weeks, Jatinder Singh was named captain of Oman for the ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup. From retirement conversations in his living room to leading his country — all in the space of a few months.

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THE CAPTAIN’S KNOCK

Wednesday’s innings was a reminder of what that rehabilitation made possible. Jatinder Singh and opener Ashish Odedara put on a brisk stand to settle Oman’s innings after winning the toss in Kirtipur. Even after two wickets fell, Jatinder kept Oman moving, accelerating as the innings progressed until Nepal’s bowlers had no answers.

His 130 gave Oman a platform they would not have had without him. It was the innings of a captain leading from the front in a match that matters — Oman currently sit third in the ICC CWC League Two table, in the mix for World Cup qualification.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Jatinder Singh has spent more than 15 years building Oman cricket from a side that trained on cement pitches after work hours to one that hosted T20 World Cup matches in 2021. He was there when they beat Ireland at the 2016 T20 World Cup in India, one of the competition’s great upsets. He was there when Oman climbed from Division 5 to ODI status in 2018. He has seen it all.

Jatinder Singh is also a man who works a full day job at a private firm in Muscat, fits training sessions around office hours, and still finds the discipline to lead a team of cricketers who are similarly juggling professional and sporting lives. The Asia Cup this year was, in his own words, “like a World Cup” for the group.

None of it would have been possible without 105 days of quiet, painful, unglamorous work — in Kharar, near Mohali, in the lanes of Chandigarh’s tricity corridor.

Wednesday’s century was scored in Nepal. But in many ways, it was made here.