Lost Talent

I recently read a blog, which was a tribute by a man to his grandfather. The grandfather was a leg-spinner, who was extremely talented and popular in his hometown but never got enough opportunities to make it big. It reminded me of a friend, an extremely talented spinner, who could never make it big.

The name of the friend is Ariel Topno. Ok, it is indeed an unusual name. The guy is from Jharkhand. His name is not the only unusual thing about him. He played cricket and with a polio affected leg!!! Yet, Ariel was damn good!!!

I am not much of a batsman but once I faced around 20 deliveries from Ariel and could not even connect a single one. It may be argued that its just a reflection of my quality as a batsman but the fact was that Ariel had an unusual and difficult to pick bowling action. Because of his polio affected leg, his run-up and delivery stride were very different. To top it all, he had the ability to bowl leg-spinners, googly, off-spinners and wrong ones with almost the same action!!! Trust me, I am not kidding or exaggerating.

I must say that I was surprised when I came to know that Ariel was selected to play for our school team. We were in Kendriya Vidyalaya Dipatoli in Ranchi. Before that, I had never seen him bowl. To be honest, I felt that he would be a 'liability' in the field as the captain would have to 'hide' him somewhere. I did not watch the first match... a match in which Ariel bowled us to a convincing victory against a decent side. This made me curious.

I went to watch the next match. The match was against Central Academy, which had an extremely strong cricket team. Central Academy had won the Inter-School League in Ranchi a few times and they were also runner-ups on few occasions. Their batting line-up had a batsman, Deepak Lal, who had never been bowled in a cricket match. He was an extremely talented and popular batsman. In the match, Ariel took three wickets. He foxed Deepak with a googly and bowled him. After that, he took 2 more crucial wickets. We lost the match but I realized how good Ariel was. My cousin was in Central Academy and he later told me that the batsmen were all praise for Ariel.

We were knocked out of the Inter-School League in the next game, which was played against the mighty DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir (commonly known as DAV Shyamali team. DAV Shyamali has two criteria for admission. Excellence in academics and excellence in sports. I must add, their team had some 'over-aged' players. In fact there was a batsman who looked more like a coach!!! They beat us convincingly.

Kendriya Vidyalayas offer chances to students to play at the regional/zonal and national levels. Ariel was selected by our school to go and play at the regional level. He went for selections to Patna. In Patna, he was dropped without getting a chance to bowl in the nets/trials. The selectors just look at his crippled leg and told him that he cannot play. Ariel challenged the selectors to put their best batsman against him. He said that he will bowl one over and if the batsman gets out even once, they should give him a fair chance to get selected. They agreed and put the captain of the district team to play one over from Ariel. The guy was bowled thrice!!! Yet, Ariel was not given a chance and he came back to Ranchi.

In the next season, Ariel played another match against DAV Shyamali. We batted first and were 45-8 in 6 overs (the league matches were of 15 overs; 3 overs per bowler). Ariel batted decently and we managed 114 runs in the 15 overs. It was decent but not at all competitive against a strong side like DAV Shyamli. Yet, we managed to give them a strong fight. Ariel took 4 wickets in his 3 overs and gave away only few runs. One of the victims was Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the present captain of the Indian Cricket team!!! We lost the game but Ariel left a strong impression. Yet, nothing changed for him.

Over the next 2 years, I saw Ariel playing in several matches. He was a great bowler, a decent batsman and a sharp close-in fielder, The biggest issue was indeed running.

Ariel comes from a lower-middle class family. His family could not support his cricket. He could not afford to join a cricket club. He was never a good student and soon became ineligible to play for the school. His cricket reached a dead-end.

Now, he does not play cricket at all. He has a small music band. However, his infectious smile and zeal has not disappeared.

If at all the elders in his family were a little more careful and if at all the selectors at the regional level were little more accommodating.....