When I was 11 years old, I used to watch my friends playing cricket in our colony. They often asked me to join them, but I always refused because I believed I wouldn’t be able to play good cricket.
One of my friends finally convinced me to play cricket the next Sunday on the ground. Around six to seven friends gathered near my home, and we all went together. It was my first day ever playing cricket. That day, we played almost five matches. In the first four matches, I couldn’t bat well and got out for a duck each time. I only did fielding and didn’t even try bowling. But in the fifth match, when all the other players were out, I batted alone and scored 14 runs. Everyone cheered for me and told me that I could actually bat well. Then I jokingly asked them, ‘Okay, but what about bowling?’.
Then one of my friends advised me and said, ‘I will teach you.’ I was very happy that day, and I never knew that this new love for cricket would later give me so much pain and even sleepless nights.
After seven days of bowling practice, I was finally ready to deliver the ball in a match. I was very serious about winning. In my first over, I took four wickets, and my excitement shot up as if I was living a dream. Suddenly, all the batsmen started treating me like a top bowler and faced me only in defensive mode.
From 6th standard to 12th standard, I used to play cricket for 5–6 hours every day, no matter how many players were with me. One of my friends was the best bowler I have ever seen in my life, and I played cricket with him continuously for almost seven years. During one practice session, he challenged me and said, ‘You will get clean bowled on this ball.’ I looked at him as if saying, ‘Go away,’ but he actually bowled me out for the first time. My heart broke, and it hurt so much that I couldn’t sleep that night, wondering how this could happen. After that, he kept challenging me every few days, and the same result happened again and again. Each time, I felt the same pain and had the same sleepless nights, thinking about how to protect my wicket but failing every time. Finally, because of all this pressure and practice, I became a very good batsman who could hit the ball on the off-side as elegantly as ‘Dada’—Sourav Ganguly.
In those days, I used to behave just like Dada, and all my friends gave me that kind of importance. I owned my own ground, my farm, the ball, the stumps, and even the bat. Now, whenever those friends meet me, they praise me a lot about cricket. Most of them play for distribution–MSEB, IT companies, education field, and they always tell me that their cricket journey started because of me. They say this every time I visit my hometown.
I am not mentioning how I gathered the bat, ball, and stumps, but my dad used to give me money for tuition, and I skipped tuition and quietly bought all these things. What happened at home after that is better not mentioned here.;). but my parents always give me freedom and space about do whatever you want in life and career.
At that time, these things felt small to me, and even now they seem simple. But they had a big impact on others. When I think about it today, I realize that those days have passed, and it is very difficult to live those moments again.