Riding with future stars

The cricket-crazy state is making huge strides in producing their own heroes. There are 22 academies in Rajkot which provide optimum support to both boys’ and girls’ age-level cricket teams. 15 to 20 ball-boys were selected from such academies in Rajkot for yesterday’s match. It was an opportunity to inspire the next generation of stars. The parents dropped them off at a predetermined location from where they were picked up by a BCCI bus which also accommodated reporters from Bangladesh.

Afjal, a student of class seven from a local school and one of the ball-boys, informed that only the best academy students are given the opportunity.

“Getting the chance to be a ball-boy is huge for us because you won’t get any chance without hard work as only the best students of these 22 academies are chosen as ball-boys for international cricket,” said Afzal.

“There is very stiff hard competition among us. First, we have to learn the basics for six months before going for the next course, which varies for batsmen, bowlers and keepers,’’ he said.

“These academies are also involved with some leading schools and we play with these school teams according to respective age groups,” he added.

Jahir, a fast bowler from one of the academies, said that he was admitted to the academy because he wanted to get into the school team.

“We usually go to the academies to make sure that we can get into the school team as we consider that to be our first step in competitive cricket.”

With an infrastructure like that, the cabbie and indeed the whole of Rajkot can someday even have their own home-grown favourite cricketer.