Dream chaser
Simi Singh has gone to great lengths to represent Ireland
EACH of the players who will make Irish sporting history this week will have their own story of the journey that led to Malahide. There are those who have soldiered for their country for more than a decade as they attained hardearned respect through special days, like beating England in the 2011 World Cup. Others are part of a new generation who have a career of Test cricket in front of them.
But nobody has a story quite like Simi Singh’s. He had hoped to become a Test cricketer this week just a year after making his debut for the Ireland senior team in last year’s Tri-Nations tournament. But it wasn’t to be this time, a slight dip in form in recent weeks counting against him when it came to the crunch.
Still, there’ll be other days. He’s travelled far enough. He can wait a little longer. The road that led him here is one of emigration, missed opportunities and his own determination to prove that he has what it takes to be a top-class player.
Singh came to Dublin as an 18year-old, having been frustrated by a lack of opportunities in his native India – it was a couple of years before the 2007 World Cup and the famous win over Pakistan.
‘A friend had just moved to Dublin and he rang me one day out of the blue, asking how the cricket was going in India. It wasn’t going great, I thought I should have been getting more opportunities. So, he suggested coming over here for a season, that cricket was a growing sport. That was 12 or 13 years ago,’ Singh recalled.
Singh was an underage star in the country. His love affair with the game began when, as a 10-year-old, he became entranced by Sachin Tendulkar’s batting on television. His parents were university lecturers but they acknowledged their son had a special talent and enrolled him in the local cricket academy in Chandigarh. He was voted the best all-rounder in India at Under 14 and 15 levels.
He played against future greats in Virat Kohli and Ishant Sharma, with whom he will renew acquaintances in the T20 games against India next month. He looked destined for the same sort of stardom until, at 17, he failed to make the Punjab Under 19s. The selectors didn’t even give him the courtesy of a phone call. He had to find out from the newspaper.
‘It was heart-breaking,’ remembered Singh last week in the yard of Adamstown Castle Educate Together National School. He was there to launch a Cricket Ireland initiative in one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the country, reflected in the fact that Adamstown Cricket Club, founded just nine years ago, is the fastestgrowing in the country.
‘I wouldn’t have minded if I wasn’t playing well, but I was the outstanding player. I had scored four hundreds in the previous four games, but some of the others got selected because of who they were.’
His friend rang at the right time. Singh was still seething at being overlooked. He came to Dublin initially on a student visa and ended up in an apartment in Malahide. He got in touch with the local cricket club and was soon recognised as one of the best performers on the domestic scene.
His talent saw him being offered a chance as Old Belvedere’s professional, which saw him undertaking coaching duties in places like Cabra and Blanchardstown. ‘Where kids hadn’t even heard of the sport, never mind held a bat,’ he sighed. ‘That was tough work.’
Surrounded by dozens of kids who treat Singh as a hero in Adamstown, it is difficult to believe that it was once almost impossible for him to get kids interested in cricket. ‘But that shows how far the game has come in the past 10 years. There are so many kids from so many different backgrounds now, who are growing up with the game. That will only benefit Irish cricket in years to come,’ Singh observed.
Lighting up the domestic scene, it was felt that a call-up to the Irish team was only around the corner. But it never came. Part of that was to do with red tape. He had returned home to India in 2008 after his student visa expired.
‘I had to go back to India and apply for a work permit,’ Singh explained. While over there, he tried out for the Indian Premier League (IPL), making the camp for Kings XI Punjab, although he just failed to make the final cut. ‘After that, I just made the decision to come back here and try to qualify to play for Ireland. The only problem was that when I came back in 2010, for the first two years, I had to keep going back to India, as I was only able to get a short-term visa of six months. It wasn’t ideal, going back and forth.’
Another issue concerned residency under the ICC rules, an immigrant has to remain in a country continuously for a minimum of 183 days. He continuously fell short by a couple of days.
‘From 2012, I have been living here full-time, so that has made things a little easier,’ he explained. His performances for Malahide caught the attention of YMCA in Sandymount, for whom he scored nearly 800 runs in his first season.
However, he had to wait until 2016 before he was eligible to play for
‘I WOULDN’T MIND IF I WAS PLAYING BADLY, BUT I HAD BEEN OUTSTANDING’
Ireland under the residency rule. He eventually got called into the Ireland A team and while touring with them in Bristol, he got the call to return to Dublin to be conferred as an Irish citizen.
‘I picked up my certificate and flew back to play for Ireland A the following day,’ Singh remembered.
A few weeks later, the Ireland A team were heading to Belfast for a match when Singh got a call from one of the selectors. He was told that he wasn’t needed in Stormont. After coming so far, he thought the worst. Was he being dropped?
‘He said “no, you are being called up to the senior team”. And I got my first Irish cap against New Zealand, just a couple of weeks after becoming a citizen.
‘It was an emotional whirlwind for a couple of weeks, all of these things swirling around my head. I was thinking back to being a kid growing up in India, dreaming of being an international cricketer. It was a dream come true.’
Singh’s journey has made quite an impact in India. Ireland’s ultimately failed attempt to get into next year’s World Cup was broadcast live in the sub-continent on Star Sports.
‘I was getting all these texts from friends and relatives, wishing me luck, saying they were watching me play for Ireland, live in India,’ he added.
His journey has gone full circle. Next month, he will play against his homeland in two T20 internationals. While Irish cricket reaches the end point of a long journey on Friday in Malahide, Simi Singh, surprisingly to some, won’t be on the pitch.
‘It has been a tough journey. Playing cricket is hard enough as it is, without having to deal with all those external issues,’ he said.
‘There has been plenty of ups and down but I always wanted to be an international cricketer. And now I have achieved that dream with Ireland.’
This week represents another big step for Irish cricket. For Simi Singh, missing out might seem like a knockback, but it’s minor compared to what he’s had to endure. His big day is not that far off. And he can wait.