Gurudas overcomes disability to live a dream
NAGPUR: “I remember people used to mock, threaten and bully me, and over everything, question how I would be a cricketer without (my) left arm. Well, today I am what I am.”
Gurudas Raut, an allrounder with the India team for the disabled, has faced what most differently-abled persons do as a child. And like most of them, Raut’s perennial complaint as a boy was why he wasn’t born like all others.
Raut was born without his left arm. Now an Air Force employee, Raut, 29, feels it has actually helped as it has forced him to manage everything with one hand.
What he boasts of is rat- tling Sachin Tendulkar’s timber while bowling in the nets, taking three consecutive ‘catches’ when David Miller was practising with South Africa, and hitting Irfan Pathan for a boundary while at a national camp in Baroda back in 2011.
“My interest in cricket started with watching the game on TV. But being disabled, I knew these were distant dreams,” Raut told Hindustan Times in a telephonic chat on Friday. “I used to hear comments like ‘You’re handicapped. Stay safe or else you’ll lose your other hand as well.’ It took me some time, but I realised they won’t ever stop and it’s better if I didn’t pay heed.”
One of three sons of a farmer, financial constraints too made it hard to realise his dream. But he found a way by playing tennis ball cricket.
Raut’s introduction to cricket was accidental. “I was standing next to the Reshimbagh cricket ground (a local club) when a batsman hit a six and the ball was going to hit us. I was sipping tea with a friend. With no alternative, I had to throw the cup away and catch the ball. That was my introduction to leather-ball cricket.”
Raut made it to the Maharashtra team in 2006, and went on to leading the side against Pakistan, winning the ODI series 3-0 and a oneoff T20.