 |
| Young Zaheer with younger Yuvraj |
October 16, 2015, NewsCrunch
Cricketer Zaheer Khan. who retired yesterday came up the hard way. When he started playing cricket seriously in Mumbai there was no money to eat nor a cricket gear. He did not even have proper shoes.
His Mumbai coach and mentor Sudhir Naik, who has also played for India, shared memories of his early association with young Zaheer Khan, with Mid Day.
Zaheer comes from a small town, Shrirampur, in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district. Sudhir Naik spotted his talent when he was 17 and asked him to join his club, National Cricket Club, Cross Maidan in 1996.
Zaheer stayed with his father's aunt, at her one-room quarters at a Mumbai hospital, where she also worked. As she could not support him properly Zaheer had to go without proper food and did not even have proper place to sleep.
"He just slept with a chaddar (bedsheet); no pillow," says Sudhir Naik. Zaheer would also often turn up for practice without having any breakfast.
His father, who wanted him to become an engineer, also could not pay for his son's stay in Mumbai.
Sudhir Naik took the matter into his own hands and stopped Zaheer from returning to Shrirampur to become an engineer. He got Zaheer a job in Mafatlal, which paid Rs 5,000 a month and allowed him to stay at the guest house.
Zaheer bought the first cricket gear of his life with Mafatlal salary and there was no turning back after that. A star was born.