Blind Cricket is looking for support. BCCI, please?

Blind Cricket is looking for support. BCCI, please?

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Prasanta Swain/ P3 Clickz

As I spent the day before in the stands watching the Blind cricket T20 WC, one question kept popping up in my head regularly. In a country like India, where the cricketers’ cult statuses are million times bigger than any national hero, where do these cricketers stand now?

What gives us the best story? Is it the story of a champion, who has achieved success after being continuously pitted against misery or is it the story of a hero whose life was a bed of roses? Nothing to be taken away from any of the latter kind, but it is the former who inspire the world, more often than not, because they rise from obscurity, mediocrity, and adversity through sheer determination.

So is the story of Blind Cricket - where the players surpass their physical limitations to play the game they love. And it is this sheer love for the game that has taken cricketers from 10 countries to come all the way to India to participate in the second edition of the T20 World Cup for the Blind. Far away from mainstream media surveillance or the social media gaga, they are here fighting it out to stake a claim. 

That spirit was in full view in the league encounter between India and New Zealand at the KIIT Cricket Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, where India continued their rampant run in the tournament. Amidst the presence of more than 10,000 spectators (mostly the students of the university), both the teams went about their business as usual. Before the flip of the coin, they ran around the ground, did their regular fielding drill, and catch practice. New Zealand batted first and posted 139, which India chased down in only 9 overs. But besides that, what added flavor to the game was the fine display of sportsmanship from all the players. There were no fist-pumping celebrations, no sledging, rather both the teams involved in some jocular moments throughout the game. When Indian skipper Ajay Reddy scored a half-century, all the opposition players came down to congratulate him and patted on his back. At no point, you could realize that they don’t have the most precious possession of human life- Eye. Such magnificent sights, those were!

 © Getty

Watching all those surreal moments so close, one question kept popping up in my head regularly. In a country like India, where the cricketers’ cult statuses are million times bigger than any national hero, where does Blind Cricket stand now?

Currently, India is the holder of the 40-over Blind World Cup, World T20 for the Blind and Asian Championship. While the Cricket Association for the Blind in India, an autonomous body and is the cricketing wing of Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled - a non-governmental organization based in Bangalore, have been trying to their level best to promote the game, it has still not gotten recognition from the BCCI. In most countries, like Pakistan, England or Sri Lanka, the blind cricket team is under the management of the main governing body. The BCCI, despite being the richest board of the world, hasn’t shown their inclination yet. 

Mohammed Jaffer Iqbal echoed the same sentiment. Iqbal, who has been a vital cog of the Indian team for the past decade, in an exclusive chat with SportsCafe, said, “We have very few supporters. We won the T20 World Cup in 2014, defeated Pakistan in the finals of the 40-over World Cup and have been at the top of the points table but there is still no financial support from the BCCI. Players do not even get prizes sometimes. Sekhar Bhai got Padma Shri this year. That was a great motivation for us. If we can get more support, then we can do even better.”

India’s long-time coach Patrick Rajkumar chipped in and said, “At the end of the day, our main aim is to foster and promote the game and create a sense of courage and passion among those who think that they couldn’t do anything in their life. We want even the last visually-impaired person in the country to get a chance to play cricket if he or she wishes to.”

But it was never honky-dory for the Samarthanam Trust to bring the people into the sport. Sukhram Majhi, who scored an unbeaten 56 runs to take India home against New Zealand, lost his father when he was a child. Hailing from Sukriguda, a tribal village in Odisha, Majhi got a call from Cricket Association for Blind in India (CABI) to play for the national squad in 2011, and he was drafted under the B3 category – a group of cricketers whose eyesight is limited to 5-6 meters. Although Majhi was selected to play for India, his blind mother did not initially allow him to go. He somehow managed to convince his mother.

   Sukhram Majhi © P3 Clickz

For an organization, which must be given credit to bring Indian Blind Cricket to international level, it is not an easy job to scout talents from the nook and cranny of the country. That is where the importance of the BCCI comes in. 

“This year, BCCI have allowed us to use their stadium to host the matches. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore will host the final of the tournament. But, if we can get affiliation and financial support from them, then we can progress more, and more talents can come to the fold,” said Iqbal, who is currently working as a procurement officer at the Odisha state civil supplies division.

When Iqbal says this, you could feel the sense of hurt and hope in his tone at the same time. The hurt at the lack of the appreciation, and the hope of good days. The hurt of not being considered in the same breath as normal cricketers, the hope that the perception will change someday. With that, Iqbal moves on. And so does the entire team. 

To win another World Cup and to made their case for support even stronger. 

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