Cricket Stories

[max_dillon2007]

Hi everyone, in this thread we would discuss the story of players who had experienced the RAGS-TO-RICHES fairy tale in

their life. Here we shall avoid doing any comaprison whatsoever. We should just sahre the stories. The inspiring stories,

the stories which would tell us that nothing is impossible.

Here is first one from me,

IRFAN PATHAN and YUSUF PATHAN

He was born in a very very poor family,poor even by Indian standards. His father has a small shop which earn barely

enough to feed their family. They were four,Irfan,Yusuf,Dad and Mom. They stay in a single room provided by the mosque

wher Irfan and Yusuf used to work as sweepers after school. They had one thing in common, their love for the game of

cricket. Both used to play cricket even after their dad used to say " It wont earn you anything,do some job instead of

wasting your time". Irfan got into Under19 team and a world record performance of 9/16 against bangladesh in u19 world

cup earned him a spot in indian team. He toured to australia in 2003 and made a impact on the international scene.
While his brother had to wait a longer period of time.Yusuf got his chance after playing crucial knocks for rajasthan

royals in IPL. Since then he had played few camio innings in ODI's for India.

The two boys who used to work as sweepers now playing for india and earning big bucks.

max_dillon2007 added 4 Minutes and 5 Seconds later...

I dont know a lot of stories of any team other than india, coz i only follow india closely. I would love to hear such stories bout english,Aussie,West indian and a lot of other countries.




P.S: I know a lot of stories related to Sachin, believe me between 16-30 age,sachin was really really naughty .

 

[King Pietersen]

Andre Fletcher. A young West Indian wicket-keeper batsman. He can't get a go in FC cricket for his domestic side, or not that I know of anyway, but his performances for Grenada in the Stanford 20/20 got him a chance to play for the Stanford Superstars, he worked hard, and got himself a place in the final squad. He then starred throughout the tournamnent for the Stanford Superstars, leading eventually to he and Chris Gayle smashing England around in the final game, earning him $1million. Pretty sure he's from a pretty poor background also, it's a great story for the lad, and he's now working hard to get a go with the West Indies.

 

[King Cricket]

MSD is another story. He was born in a remote village of Bihar. His father was an ordinary clerk in a government office. They belonged to the lower-middle class group of the society. Dhoni used to go to a nearby free govt school. The funny thing is that in school he was more known as a goalkeeper/footballer than a hard hitting batsman. So, once it happened that Dhoni's first cricket coach (don't remember his name) he once saw Dhoni goalkeeping in a school football match. He at once realized that Dhoni had immense cricketing skills hidden in him. He then convinced Dhoni to come to cricket. Dhoni listened. He started to practice under that man. 2,3 years later in most probably 1999 MSD made his first-class debut. But his bad luck didn't end just then. His father retired from his job a few years after that and Dhoni was forced to find a job for himself, as you know in those days there were no IPL or ICL and playing only first class cricket for a division 2 team didn't fetch someone a lot of money. So for his family's sake Dhoni became a ticket-collector. Even when Ganguly's India was playing the WC 03 final, Dhoni was collecting ticket in a station. But Dhoni didn't give up playing cricket. His series of consistent performances in the domestic level brought him an India A call-up. That was most probably in late 2003 or something (I maybe wrong) Then another year passed. Dec 23, 2004, MS Dhoni walked into the Chittagong stadium, wearing the navy blue India jersey, with a bat in his hands and a firm look of determination in his face. His dream has finally come true! His dream to play for India! But he was pulled back to the world of reality pretty soon after this. The scoreboard was then showing "MS Dhoni runout 0" A frustrated, tired, dissapointed, Dhoni walked back into the pavillion with his heart completely broken. But he never gave up, fighters don't give up, he was a born fighter. He returned back to the Indian team firmly after scoring a brave 143 against Pakistan the very next year. After that he never had to look back- 183 vs Sri Lanka, getting picked for the world cup, becoming the captain of the Indian T-20 team, becoming the first captain ever in the history of cricket to lift the T-20 Cup, becoming the ICC ODI player of the year 2008, becoming the first Indian captain to lead the team to 9 consecutive ODI wins- these things all happened quite dramatically. Now he stands- the richest Indian cricketer right now, arguably the best Indian captain- the same Dhoni who was once a ticket-collector...the same Dhoni whose family had to once live in great poverty........

Sorry, the article is a bit too long :o- actually when I start writing I forget where to stop. Silly me

 

[mukund_nadkarni]

Nice to see the two Pathans make it big. Vinod Kambli also came from a very modest background. Of the present crop there's Dhoni, Amit Mishra, maybe some of the others too. Guess most of the present Indian players come from middle, lower middle class families. Also read on Cricinfo, that Warner of Australia hails from a similar background.

 

[max_dillon2007]

Yuvraj Singh:
He wasn't very poor to say the least but its his journey that had earned him a place in this thread.
He was born in a middle class family. His father was a first class cricketre and had played just one match for India. Believe it or not, Yuvraj's first love wasnt cricket. It was Skating. Yeah, thats right. Yuvraj was a brilliant skater and has been skating since age of 5. He had won Gold at Junior Skating World Cup. But his gold didnt pleased his father. He got really angry at him and told him to never touch skate again in life. His father was angry coz he wanna his son to become a cricketer and get success which he never got. He was annoyed to see his son interested in anything other than cricket so seriously. from that day yuvi got bat in his hand and his father gave him net sessions day in and day out. Yuvi eventually become a good player and got into under 19 side,but he never fall in love with the game unless he had tasted success at international level. Since than you can see his love and passion for the game.

It is really hard to believe that a player like Yuvraj has been made a cricketer forcefully.

P.S: Damn! why didnt BCCI get yuvi's dad as head coach in national academy.

 

[Highlander999]

I always love to hear these stories as they are such a great source for inspiration for all children who grow up in slums. However, I don't think you will get "rags to riches" in places like GB, Aus, NZ etc as they don't really have anyone in "rags". Still that Andre Fletcher one is a nice one

 

[max_dillon2007]

I always love to hear these stories as they are such a great source for inspiration for all children who grow up in slums. However, I don't think you will get "rags to riches" in places like GB, Aus, NZ etc as they don't really have anyone in "rags". Still that Andre Fletcher one is a nice one

Well niether every aussie is a millionare nor a Indian. I meant,share stories of players who had to fight for everything in their life for cricket. For example, Pathan brothers didnt have best coaching and equipment. They had to work hard for everything. Whereas Sachin was from a rich family,so he always got best coaching,equipment and every other faciluty. Sachin only had to polish his talent whereas Pathans had to think bout basic necessities of life also. So now you got my point.

Though even now you cant recall any story then you might wanna check Dave Warner's background. anyway we can share funny and naughty stories bout players too.

I know it is off topic but i had to share this one. It is really funny.

in 1991 saurav Ganguly was selected for ODI in indian team. At that time sachin was a regular in indian team. In the hotel, when Saurav was sleeping, Sachin crawl into the room and closed all the windows of the room tightly. He placed some towels at the bottom of the door(you would know later why). Now all preprations are over,its time for action. Sachin attached a rubber pipe to the tap in the bathroom and lead it to saurav's bedroom. In five minutes room was filled with water to the knee level. When it reached Saurav's bed ,saurav woke up. Then came the most hilarious scene. Saurav came out of the room running and shouting to wake everyone up .he was yelling " Udi baba,baad,baad,paani,paani,udi baba,bhago" (Oh my god,flood,flood,water,water,everyone run). Everyone in the team knew who had done this,as they all have been victims of Sachin's mischiefs on more than one occasion.

P.S: I am travelling and posting here on my mobile so pardon me for any mistakes as it is really taxing on my thumbs.

 

[King Pietersen]

So Sachin ruined a hotel room, probably caused damage to the property within the room, and water of knee height would surely cause some sort of damage to the floor, meaning visible signs of water damage to the ceiling of the hotel room below, and probably proved pretty expensive for the hotel. You sure this actually happened? I certainly couldn't find any evidence for the story in a quick google search, and how is that a story of rags to riches? Has no relevance what so ever.

 

[King Cricket]

Well niether every aussie is a millionare nor a Indian. I meant,share stories of players who had to fight for everything in their life for cricket. For example, Pathan brothers didnt have best coaching and equipment. They had to work hard for everything. Whereas Sachin was from a rich family,so he always got best coaching,equipment and every other faciluty. Sachin only had to polish his talent whereas Pathans had to think bout basic necessities of life also. So now you got my point.

Though even now you cant recall any story then you might wanna check Dave Warner's background. anyway we can share funny and naughty stories bout players too.

I know it is off topic but i had to share this one. It is really funny.

in 1991 saurav Ganguly was selected for ODI in indian team. At that time sachin was a regular in indian team. In the hotel, when Saurav was sleeping, Sachin crawl into the room and closed all the windows of the room tightly. He placed some towels at the bottom of the door(you would know later why). Now all preprations are over,its time for action. Sachin attached a rubber pipe to the tap in the bathroom and lead it to saurav's bedroom. In five minutes room was filled with water to the knee level. When it reached Saurav's bed ,saurav woke up. Then came the most hilarious scene. Saurav came out of the room running and shouting to wake everyone up .he was yelling " Udi baba,baad,baad,paani,paani,udi baba,bhago" (Oh my god,flood,flood,water,water,everyone run). Everyone in the team knew who had done this,as they all have been victims of Sachin's mischiefs on more than one occasion.

P.S: I am travelling and posting here on my mobile so pardon me for any mistakes as it is really taxing on my thumbs.

In Bengali, "flood" is not baad, rather it's "vanya"

 

[mukund_nadkarni]

As for Sachin being naughty, that he is playing cricket today is because he had a fall off a tree while fooling around!

 

[Leggie]

I read the Pathan story quite a while ago. One line I remember is when their Dad tells them that 'Cricket is rich mans game'. Just made me think after seeing so many children in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh playing cricket on the streets...

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Yuvi was indeed forced into cricket. There was thing on Cricinfo, where the writer talked about a time when he saw Yuvi's dad come to see Yuvi at practive. Yuvraj was waiting for his turn to bat, and that made his dad mad, so he grabbed the coach by the collar and demanded that Yuvi be made to bat, and that his son was more important than any other player there...

It's terrible really. Yuvi had the talent, but it's horrible how he has been forced into cricket. I'm still not convinced he is passionate for the team and 100% committed to the job at hand. Might explain why many of us think he's an idiot and doesn't have his head on right when batting, it's because he never wanted to do this in the first place.

 

[Leggie]

Thats quite astonishing how someone was forced to play cricket for the National Team, and there are so many children in India who probably have the talent but were/are never given the oppurtinity.

I remeber reading somewhere (I think it was Cricinfo), That Harbhajan only started bowling off spin after his Grandfather died for some reason, Before that he was a pure batsmen. Would explain why he is no mug with the bat.

 

[mukund_nadkarni]

So Sachin ruined a hotel room, probably caused damage to the property within the room, and water of knee height would surely cause some sort of damage to the floor, meaning visible signs of water damage to the ceiling of the hotel room below, and probably proved pretty expensive for the hotel. You sure this actually happened? I certainly couldn't find any evidence for the story in a quick google search, and how is that a story of rags to riches? Has no relevance what so ever.

That incidence is true. Have read it before. Anyways you are looking at it very cynically.

 

[max_dillon2007]

So Sachin ruined a hotel room, probably caused damage to the property within the room, and water of knee height would surely cause some sort of damage to the floor, meaning visible signs of water damage to the ceiling of the hotel room below, and probably proved pretty expensive for the hotel. You sure this actually happened? I certainly couldn't find any evidence for the story in a quick google search, and how is that a story of rags to riches? Has no relevance what so ever.

I mentioned clearly that it is off topic yet i had to tell you this coz this shows a really naughty side of sachin. As far as googling is concerned. Well, i knew it coz i watched an interview of Vinod Kambli,he was telling the mischiefs which he and sachin used to pull out in the team when they were young.

here is another one,

When sachin was 14, he was staying at a hotel with his school team. There he gently applied some ointment on the eyes of his sleeping friend. That oinyment was meant for body pains only and applying them on eyes cause gives a sensation of burning. Another victim of Sachin