CHENNAI: Hailing from a family of athletes where his grandfather was a sprinter, his father was a shot putter, Surender Chhikara, who himself was a long-distance runner, always wanted his children to pursue sports. However, little did he know to achieve that he not only had to turn into a cricket coach but also develop 12 wickets on his field to make sure his son, Swastik, became a cricketer. As he fittingly said while talking to this daily, necessity is the mother of invention, Surender ended up with a cricket academy named SS Nalanda Cricket Hostel in Ghaziabad that now houses 13 kids trying to make their careers in cricket.
As far as his son Swastik is concerned, he made his debut for Uttar Pradesh, slamming a century on his Vijaya Hazare debut last month. Before that, the 18-year-old hogged the limelight in the UP T20 League slamming three centuries and two half-centuries in August-September. The right-hand batter also appeared in trials for Mumbai Indians, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals. Given his exploits in the UP T20 League, his father is optimistic about him finding a buyer during the mini-auction scheduled on December 19.
It all started in 2008 when Surender, who did NIS diploma in coaching course, saw Swastik's inclination towards cricket. Before him, nobody in the family was a cricketer. Both of Surender's sisters — Savita and Sheel — were also 100m and 200m sprinters. "While doing the NIS coaching course, I realised the climate in our country coupled with a few other factors meant it was difficult to produce world-class runners. So I wanted Swastik to choose his sport. He made my life easy as he never demanded any toy apart from a cricket bat," Surender, whose forefathers hail from a village in Jhajjar district (Haryana), told this daily.
Nonetheless, life was not easy thereafter as finding a dedicated coach for Swastik turned out to be an uphill task. "My wife Sudha used to take him to a cricket academy in Ghaziabad. It was around 16km from our home in Muradnagar. But the coach there was doing nothing except asking trainees to run and pick the balls. We tried at a few more academies but in vain. Then I decided to train Swastik."
The first thing Surender did was to build a turf wicket with nets enclosing it from three directions on his 2.60-acre field. "I requested former India spinner Maninder Singh to inaugurate it. To my amazement, the next day when I visited the field, the nets and poles were missing. It made me sleep there to keep away the trespassers."
Gradually, Surender understood he could not keep up the work as basically, he was an athletics coach. "Initially it was good but as Swastik started developing as a cricketer, I needed to introduce variations in my bowling. There was no other bowler there as we were training alone. I could not bowl inswing and outswing so I decided to develop a wicket tilted by 2 feet from one end to swing the ball."
In the group photo, Swastik's father is extreme leftSoon enough, he got to know that the wicket would be of no use during monsoon. "Then I developed a cemented surface and had another one ready with shed on it to ensure my son continues to practice even when it rains."
The father hit another roadblock when Swastik started longing for pace bowling. "I can bowl but the pace was not there. To make up for it, I bought a bowling machine in 2015. In the meantime, I continued developing more wickets to suit to different demands of Swastik. Overall now the place has 12 practice wickets."
Surender, a sub-inspector, is an instructor with the Delhi police. He imparts training to newly recruited cops on weapons, martial arts, bomb disposal and other skills. It was not easy to juggle between the two jobs. The Delhi Police Training Institute in Wazirabad is about 30km from his home.
"My job profile means I have to reach the institute by 4 am to impart training from 5 to 8 to the recruits. I have to go there again in the evening to hold the parade for one hour. This meant I used to travel at least 120km per day to make sure I was there at my coaching centre for Swastik," said Surender.
The hard work started paying dividends as Swastik started scoring runs in bulk. He hit 585 runs in a local tournament to grab headlines in 2019. He also started playing age-group cricket (U14, 16, 19, 23 and 25) for his state. He also featured for India B during the period but it was his prolific form in the UP T20 League that put the spotlight on him. "This year, he performed exceptionally well in the state T20 league and also made his senior debut for the UP team in the 50-over tournament. He was in the squad for the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy but didn't get a game."
More than Swastik, his father Surender would be glued to the television when the mini-auction takes place in two weeks' time. And he is ready to accept whatever the outcome is. "We can only hope. No matter what the result is, I know my son deserves to play in the IPL. If it doesn't happen this season, it will happen the next season," signed off Surender. Numbers game 117 off 101 balls Swastik made on his senior UP debut in Vijay Hazare Trophy against Himachal 494 runs he scored at an average of 70.57 and a strike rate of 173.33 from 9 innings in UP T20 League 3 centuries he scored in the league playing for Meerut Mavericks
