Emotions welled up inside Saurashish Lahiri when Akash Deep, the latest Bengal speed merchant to enter Indian dressing room, rang him up.
It was quite natural too as Lahiri, his first state-level coach, has seen the growth of Akash as a cricketer from close quarters.
“Today, Akash called up and said, “Sir, main toh train thaa, par train ko bhi patri pe laana hota hai, woh aapne kiya. (I was a train but the train needed to be put on track, you did that),” Lahiri, the former Bengal off-spinner recollected the conversation with his “ward” just after he received the best news of his career.
With his new ball colleague Mukesh Kumar already making the India cut, Akash would have been hoping to get a chance or two to prove his mettle like he has been doing it for Bengal over the past four years.
Hailing from a middle-class family in remote Sasaram village in Bihar, the 27-year-old Akash had his share of struggles. He lost his father and elder brother and there was no prevailing sporting culture in the family.
Call it fate but just like Gopalganj’s Mukesh, who was playing tennis ball cricket before ‘Vision2020’ changed his life, Akash, who was a ‘big name’ in Asansol’s ‘khep cricket’ (tennis ball tourneys in Bengal), even went a step further and bowled in a tournament in Dubai.
