Growing up, Sunil Kumar had only one dream: carrying the Indian jersey. The circumstances compelled the then 19-year-old budding boxer to give up the game. Now, 20 years later, he’s lastly residing his dream by means of his son Nishant Sindhu, who’s representing India on the ICC Men’s U-19 World Cup.
The 17-year-old Sindhu has performed a pivotal function in India’s run within the ongoing match. The gifted all-rounder from Haryana has picked up six wickets and has scored 90 runs in 4 matches to date. Sindhu, alongside together with his fellow left-arm spinner Vicky Ostwal, has shared 18 wickets within the match and has given India an edge in opposition to the groups within the match. The duo has efficiently choked oppositions run move within the center overs.
Ostwal and Sindhu are totally different bowlers. One is fast by means of the air, whereas the opposite appears to be like for extra spin, however each are equally efficient on the gradual Caribbean wickets. They dried up runs from each ends, compelled the batters to play photographs, and are rewarded with a bagful of wickets.
“It gives me so much joy to watch him play for India. My dream was always to don the Indian jersey, which unfortunately I never did,” Sunil Kumar tells Indian Express over the cellphone.
Kumar, 39, was a state-level boxer for Haryana, however the lack of help from the household compelled him to hold his boxing gloves.
“I was in 54kg weight category but never got that backing from my family. My father was a government employee. For him, academics was everything. My mother supported me a lot but unfortunately, she passed away when I was 19. There was responsibility, I had two younger sisters, so I started working,” remembers Kumar.
Kumar, who by no means had any curiosity in cricket, was stunned when he noticed his three-year-old son leaping in pleasure when India, below MS Dhoni, gained the T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007. The following day, he gifted him a plastic bat, which was when he found one other aspect about his son.
“I gave him the bat, and his stance was left-handed. I threw the ball toward him and he picked up with his left hand. Then I came to know why he is a southpaw,” laughs Kumar.
Kumar all the time wished his son to observe in his footstep, however Sindhu by no means confirmed any curiosity in boxing. In 2011, the day after India gained the ODI World Cup, he hesitantly advised his father that he wished to play cricket.
“I always wanted him to be a sportsperson, be it cricket or boxing. I decided that I would never let anything come between him and his dream. He wanted to play cricket, and I decided to back him with my last penny,” says Kumar.
Kumar enrolled Nishant into Shri Ram Narain Cricket Academy, run by a former Haryana first-class cricketer and coach, Ashwani Kumar.
Sant Rathee, a coach on the academy, remembers how he was shocked after watching Sindhu bowls for the primary time. “I saw an 8-year-old kid with a natural loop. It was so natural. The batting was equally good, the hand-eye coordination, the drives, everything was so perfect,” recounts Rathee.
Nishant Sindhu is representing India on the ICC Men’s U-19 World Cup.
Sindhu got here to the limelight when he scored 290 runs and bagged 24 wickets for Haryana within the U-14 Dhruv Pandove Trophy held in Patiala in 2017. He was instantly fast-tracked into the Haryana U-16 staff, and within the 2017-18 Vijay Merchant Trophy, he scored 280 runs and took 16 wickets.
He saved his finest for the 2018-19 Vijay Merchant Trophy, the place Sindhu amassed 572 runs and bagged 23 wickets. It was below his captaincy that Haryana defeated Jharkhand within the remaining to elevate the tile. The Vijay Merchant Trophy success helped him get a call-up from the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.
When he returned from the camp in March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic raged on, and Sindhu, like a whole lot of younger aspiring cricketers in India, was left upset.
Kumar once more got here to his son’s rescue. He made a makeshift health club on his terrace and requested his pal, Anand Mayana, a health coach, to spare a while for his son.
“For any athlete, fitness should be the top priority. I have learned it from my experience. Anand used to visit us twice a day, and he will look after his fitness routine. There was not much space for him to bowl; we used to do shadow practicing and throwdowns with the wet tennis balls. I managed whatever I could,” remembers Sunil.
Two years later, Sindhu marshalled his troops to the U-19 Vinoo Mankad Trophy triumph. Haryana defeated Maharashtra by six wickets within the finals to cap off a marketing campaign the place the staff didn’t lose a single sport. Sindhu scored 299 runs and took 12 wickets for Haryana within the match.
His success was rewarded when he was chosen for the India U-19 squad for the Asia Cup and U-19 World Cup. What stunned everybody was that he was not being nominated because the staff’s skipper. But he went on to captain India in two video games in opposition to Ireland and Uganda following a Covid-19 outbreak within the Indian camp. With captain Yash Dhull and vice-captain Shaik Rasheed each in isolation, VVS Laxman and Co. handed the captaincy badge to Sindhu.
Unfortunately, the Haryana teenager additionally examined constructive and needed to miss the quarter-final conflict in opposition to Bangladesh.
“He has always been a leader. He has great awareness of the game, and when Yash and Rasheed were tested positive, I knew Nishant would be the leader. He is not even 17 and has won two prestigious tournaments,” says Kumar, who has additionally skilled India ladies’s staff opener, Shafali Verma.
Pankaj Thakur, Haryana U-19 coach, too, charges Sindhu extremely. He decodes how the teenager has advanced as a cricketer over time.
“He is a complete package. A solid middle-order batter, a brilliant bowler and a gun outfield fielder. The greatest attribute of his game is his eagerness to improve,” says Thakur, who has performed 57 first-class matches for Haryana. “What has impressed me the most is his bowling. He always tries to play with the batter’s mind. He loves setting up batters; he might get hit in the process, but he will never lose heart. He loves to flight the ball and will always look for the rough patches created by the fast bowlers.”
He provides: “In his U-16 days, he didn’t have that arm ball. He learned this craft over a period of time. I think being a spinner, he was used to bowl 30-35 overs in a day, and it gave time to add arm ball into his armoury.”
Thakur liked how his ward cleaned up Australia’s Nivethan Radhakrishnan within the semifinal. “The same ball in the last over, he was hit for a boundary. This time he bowled it slow in the air; it spun, took the inside edge ricochets onto the stumps. His celebration will tell you that he was setting him up from the last over,” says Thakur.
Back in Rohtak, Nihsant’s mom Vandana is busy cooking Ghewar (a conventional candy), her son’s favorite. “For the past five years, due to his fitness regime and diet, I have never allowed him to eat it. Win or lose, he will have his favourite dish served when he returns,” says Kumar.