Season for IPL’s hinterland tales
MUMBAI: Back in 2006, when Lukman Meriwala cut and weld metal, shielding his eyes from the sparks off the cutting torch, he would tell friends: “Aapro ne cricket no mel nahi pade (cricket is not meant for us).” After repeated struggles to break into the playing 11 of club sides in Baroda, his aspiration to play higher grade cricket had faded into a distant dream. Elsewhere in Gujarat when schoolboy Chetan Sakariya was doubling up as salesman in his uncle’s bookstall to fund his cricket, seeing his father compelled to drive a goods tempo to make ends meet, despite one side of the body left numb after a road accident, would leave him dispirited.
On Thursday at the IPL auction, when the gavel went down on the names of Meriwala and Sakariya, they had earned their ticket to the game’s richest league. Both are left-arm fast bowlers—Meriwala, 29, was picked up by Delhi Capitals at his base price of ₹20 lakh while Rajasthan Royals won a bidding war for 22-year-old Sakariya and will pay him ₹1.2 crore.
Gujarat’s Sarnar village in Bharuch where Meriwala stays and Vartej, a small-town in Bhavnagar, where Sakariya resides are the latest additions to IPL’s geographical outreach in uplifting the lives of families from humble background in rural India.
The cheers for T Natarajan are still ringing, reinforcing IPL’s power to help script great underdog stories. The left-arm pacer from a poor family in rural Tamil Nadu found IPL success, became a net bowler for India, ended up making debuts in all formats in Australia, and signed off with the Gabba Test triumph.
Meriwala and Sakariya watched the auction drama with their state teammates ahead of the Vijay Hazare Trophy. At home, the Meriwala family was overjoyed. At the Sakariyas, tears of sorrow mingled with joy as they are still mourning the death by suicide of Chetan’s younger brother.
“My father wasn’t making much money being a small farmer (for a family of five). Cricket wasn’t working out. With the sheer urge to help the family, I took up fabrication,” Meriwala said.
“But my parents convinced me to give cricket another try. A distant uncle, Zakir bhai, showed me around Baroda and I began to play again. After the focus was back, I began to do well. I earned a place in the Baroda U19 side, and in 2013 I got in the Baroda one-day team.”
The Sakariya family, as far back in generations as Chetan’s mother Varsha could recall, was into all sorts of labour work. “Sometimes Chetan’s father’s wages would take six months to come. He would even ride big vehicles to faraway places like Bhuj…wherever he would get a fare,” she said. “I got engaged in sari stone-work, from which I would make 500-700 rupees. My brother, Mansukh who lived in the neighbouring Desai Nagar offered to bring up Chetan. I had three children and little money. I couldn’t say no, and from when he was very little, that’s where he grew up. Whenever possible, he would come home. Desai NagarVartej was a 10-rupee ride,” she spoke with moist eyes.
Despite the struggle, Sakariya never gave up cricket. For him every wicket taken was a step towards a better life. “I got my break when Jaydev bhai (Unadkat) got injured in Saurashtra’s 2018 Ranji match against Gujarat. I picked up a fifer and got 29 wickets in eight matches,” Sakariya said. Stars aligned for Sakariya to be picked up by RR where Unadkat, his state captain and go-to man, is a senior bowler. “I am happy that we will get to work together,” said Unadkat. “I go and have a word with him every now and then in nets and even during matches. I generally speak with him when his rhythm is not going right or when he is doing well, just to remind him not to overdo things in training.”
While Sakariya gets to bowl in tandem with Unadkat, Meriwala has benefitted from the advice of former India left-armer Irfan Pathan, who was in the Baroda side in his early days of domestic cricket.