Bereft of sight, blind players see life in game of cricket
blind cricketers from 15 states are participating in the 4th Inter Zonal Cricket Tournament for the Blind being held in the city.
The cricketers, many of who have represented India at the international level, have one thing in common – they are all cricketing heroes in their own right.
For Shaukat Ali, a budding cricketer from Lucknow, cricket is a lifeline.
“I practice for almost 18-20 hours on days and want to make a career out of the game,” he says.
“The government does not support blind cricketers or formats for us.” Gurveer Singh from Ludhiana, a member of the blind cricket team that toured Pakistan in 2006, says his family supported his decision to join sports at a very early age.
“I always took my disability as a challenge and never listened to what others said,” says Singh, an employee of Punjab state cooperative bank. “In sports, I found empowerment and a way of liberating myself from the limitations that are usually thrust upon people with disability.”
Organized by the Blind Cricket Association (BCA), the T-20 format tourney has four teams - India Red, India Yellow, India Orange and India Blue. The players are divided into categories depending on their visual impairment.
“It’s like an IPL game for the blind…we feel equally crazy and excited about the tournament,” says BCA secretary general and cricketer Manvendra Singh Patwal, a former captain of the Indian blind cricket team. “We’re completely against how blind people (are) treated like a product by many NGOs.”
“In this tournament, we come together as cricketing heroes, to show the world our calibre.
We want to be known not for our disability, but by the immense (sporting) ability we possess.”
Gaurav Goenka, secretary of the BCA’s East Zone, says blind players do not need sympathy from the society.