Gloucestershire bowler Aman Rao has revealed that making his T20 debut in 2025 was the “most fun I’ve ever had on a cricket field,” as he now looks to challenge for a place in the side following a back injury.
Rao only signed a rookie deal with Gloucestershire at the start of last season, becoming the second South Asian Cricket Academy (SACA) graduate to sign for the club after Zaman Akhter in 2023, but quickly found himself thrusted into the first team due to a number of injuries.
“It happened very quickly,” he recalled. “I was just trialling in the second team and a few injuries happened and suddenly I was signed off the contract, and then two or three days later I was up playing in the T20 Blast.
“So it happened very quickly, a bit of a whirlwind, I didn’t really know many people. But yeah, I’ve played two games in the T20s and I love every moment of it, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had on a cricket field.”
The 21-year-old claimed best figures of 1/32 from his five overs in two games, before suffering a stress fracture in his lower back – a common injury among bowlers, but one that sidelined him through the winter.
“It’s just a repetitive use of certain areas. You can get stress fractures anywhere, but in particular, in the lower back, there’s just a lot of rotation and force going through the back.
“So repetitive use of that causes a little stress on the bone, causing a little fracture in it. And yeah, it basically happens over time. It’s quite painful and they just take ages to heal.
“In order to really have the recovery, you just have to rest it and not use too much of that back and do low impact stuff. But yeah, it’s very common. To be honest, I couldn’t really name one that hasn’t had one.”
Thankfully Rao didn’t miss a great deal of action, having picked up the knock in mid-September before subsequently spending the off-season recovering.
Although he missed his side’s pre-season tour to Stellenbosch in South Africa, he said the timing was probably as ideal as possible: “It was September the 15th, I believe, and back playing on the 27th of April. So seven months really of recovery and rehab to get back.
“I think at first I wasn’t too disheartened or disappointed. One, because of the timing, the day the season ended, I had the whole of the winter to rehab most of it. So I wasn’t happy but I wasn’t missing that much of cricket, whereas if I had in April or May, I would have missed the whole season.
“Now I just needed to build up my loads and tolerance and get back bowling from scratch basically, to build up to be able to play matches. But overall, I’d say it was quite a good experience. I didn’t feel too disheartened or anything and I’m glad to be back.”
Gloucestershire have had plenty of turnover since the end of last season, losing a plethora of bowlers including Ajeet Singh Dale – who took 40 County Championship wickets in 2025 – to Lancashire, and Josh Shaw to Somerset.
Having only managed a couple of games last year, Rao is eager to add to that and admits the change could leave him some more openings: “Obviously, we’ve lost six bowlers, and that’s been highlighted around the circuit.
“We have a very strong team, in the bowling department especially: we have De Lange and Payne, who are on white ball only contracts, and they’re world-class bowlers.
“But yeah, I’d hope to potentially get some opportunities.”
At a tall 6’6”, Rao has long looked up to a lethal era of Australian fast bowling, likening himself to Josh Hazelwood in particular as a right armer, as well as Stuart Broad.
Despite not yet playing a first-class match for Gloucestershire, that remains a keen aspiration – as does playing for his country in the future.
“I would love to play for England. I’m sure, I think. I’m only 21-years-old and hopefully I can push that. That’d definitely be the dream. I’ve, you know, test cricket and longer format cricket is my favourite and will always be my favourite. That’s sort of a bit of a priority for me, although franchise cricket is amazing as well.
“So we’ll see what opportunities it will present, but red ball cricket for me is the pinnacle. I know if I keep doing stuff behind the scenes and keep putting in performances then things will take care of itself, really.”
