From taking the abra to owning a bentley
In the 51 years he’s been in UAE, Shyam Bhatia has been instrumental in evolution of cricket here
From commuting by Abra in the mid-60s to owning a Bentley, it has been a long 51-year-long ride for the septuagenarian Indian businessman, Shyam Bhatia. But his belief in Dubai and his passion for the game of cricket is unchanged.
In fact, the faith in the City of Gold kept strengthening for Bhatia with the growth of his personal stature — from an executive with the New India Assurance to one of the top steel manufacturers in the Middle East.
“We grew with Dubai that has seen mind-blowing progress, I am a great believer of Dubai,” enthused the tall lithesome Sindhi businessman, who first landed in Dubai on August 7, 1965, by ship. The steel magnate’s eyes lit up every time we talk about Dubai or cricket.
Having played school cricket in India, young Bhatia was obviously keen to pursue his favourite sport in Dubai, too. “I first went to India sport club that was established a year before I landed in Dubai,” he says, adding that he began playing with the others in Sharjah.
“I first went in ‘whites’ but was surprised to see the others in casuals and some playing without shirts in the hot weather,” he says with a chuckle.
After about three years of stay in Dubai, Bhatia got a ‘jute mat’ shipped from India. “We didn’t have any proper wickets here so we would look for some flat surface to roll out ‘matting wicket’ and start playing cricket,” he says. Nationals like Abbas Kazim, Abdulrehman Falaknaz, Mohammed Reda Abbas and few others would join for a session of cricket, he recalls.
“The (UAE) nationals picked up cricket while studying in India or some in Pakistan.”
Formalising a cricket body in Dubai was a natural progression. Bhatia was at the forefront with Hero Jashanmal, Falaknaz and Mohammed Reda Abbas in forming the Dubai Cricket Council in 1969. “Each one of us contributed 5,000 rupees to start the council,” he says, adding that those days Indian currency was in use here. “The notes were slightly different in colour (red) but the coins were the same as used in India.”
The next step was to play a match against cricketers from Abu Dhabi. “Mohan Jashanmal agreed to host us, so we stayed at his house overnight to play a match the next day,” he says.
Fondly recollecting the fourhour journey from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, Bhatia said: “We would drive on the right of the sea while going to Abu Dhabi and on the left while returning to Dubai and that was our ‘GPS’ then.”
However, all that trouble to drive up and down Abu Dhabi was only to have a game of cricket.
The India-UAE bond through cricket took a turn for the better in 1981. “(Abdulrehman) Bukhatir started to bring international teams to Sharjah and cricket boomed,” Bhatia says.
During those cricket matches, Bhatia would host international cricketers to give them a taste of ‘home food’. “They would bring one or the other memorabilia for me and that kept piling up, so one day I got an idea of creating a museum and as they say rest is history,” he says.
Bhatia has one of the finest privately owned cricket museums, which every international cricketer admires.
“My dream is to make a much bigger cricket museum in Dubai that would be open to public and could become one of the ‘must visit’ places in the emirate,” he reveals. For that, he is optimistic about getting a positive response from the authority for a request for a land and other assistance.
Recently, Bhatia met Saeed Hareb, Secretary-General of the Dubai Sports Council. “He (Saeed Hareb) is also keen to promote cricket in Dubai,” he says.
Through his Cricket For Care programme, Bhatia wants to distribute cricket kits in UAE schools so that more and more young nationals get involved with the sport that is being played here for over five decades.
Bhatia is confident that cricket is here to stay as Dubai keeps getting bigger and bigger.
sunilvaidya@khaleejtimes.com