The Boy Who Bowled MS Dhoni

There are stories that stay with you because they were extraordinary. And then there are stories that stay with you because they were unfinished.

This is about a school friend named Ariel.

Ariel was from Jharkhand. Even his name sounded unusual back then. But that was not the unusual part about him. Ariel played cricket with a polio-affected leg. And yet, he was unbelievably good. Even today, when I think of Ariel, I remember one thing before anything else - how ridiculously difficult he was to bat against.

I was never much of a batsman, but I still remember once facing around twenty deliveries from him and failing to connect even one properly. I know, youy guys would argue that it only reflected my batting (in)abilities. Fair enough! But that was not the real issue. Ariel had one of the most difficult bowling actions I have ever faced.

Because of his affected leg, his run-up and delivery stride were awkward, unpredictable and extremely deceptive. And then came the real problem - he could bowl leg-spin, googly, off-spin and wrong ones with almost the same action.

Trust me, I am not kidding or exaggerating.

We were in Kendriya Vidyalaya Dipatoli in Ranchi. Before Ariel got selected for the school cricket team, I had never seen him bowl. To be honest, when I first heard about his selection, I assumed he would become a liability in the field. I thought the captain would probably have to hide him somewhere because of his leg.

Then came the first match. I did not go to watch it. And in that very match, Ariel bowled us to a convincing victory against a decent side. Naturally, I became curious.

The next game was against Central Academy, one of the strongest school cricket teams in Ranchi at the time. They had won the Inter-School League multiple times and had also finished runners-up on several occasions. Their batting line-up included a hugely talented and popular batsman named Deepak Lal, who apparently had a reputation for never getting bowled.

Ariel dismissed him with a googly.

Not just dismissed him - completely foxed and bowled him!!

He took three wickets in that match. We still lost, but that day I realized just how special he was. Later, my cousin, who studied in Central Academy, told me that their batsmen could not stop talking about Ariel.

Our next match was against the mighty DAV Jawahar Vidya Mandir - commonly known as DAV Shyamali. Their admissions were famous for two things: excellence in academics and excellence in sports. They also seemed to have a few “over-aged” players. One batsman honestly looked more like a coach than a student.

They beat us comfortably. But Ariel left an impression there too.

Kendriya Vidyalayas used to send students for regional and national selections. Ariel was selected by our school for the regional trials in Patna.

And this is the part that still annoys me when I think about it.

He travelled all the way to Patna, only to be rejected before even getting a chance to bowl in the nets. The selectors looked at his crippled leg and decided he could not play. That was it. No trial. No assessment. No opportunity.

Ariel challenged them.

He asked them to put their best batsman against him for one over. He said that if he managed to dismiss the batsman even once, they should at least give him a fair chance. The selectors agreed.

The batsman they chose was the captain of the district team. Ariel bowled him three times in that one over. And still, he was sent back to Ranchi. Nothing changed.

The following season, we again played against DAV Shyamali. We batted first and collapsed to 45 for 8 in six overs in a fifteen-over match. Ariel played a useful innings lower down the order and somehow dragged us to 114.

It was still nowhere near enough against a side like DAV. Then...Ariel bowled.

He picked up four wickets in his three overs while conceding very few runs. One of the batsmen he dismissed that day was a boy named Mahendra Singh Dhoni - who would later become one of the greatest white-ball wicketkeeper-batsman of all time, arguably the best finisher the game has seen and India’s most successful white-ball captain.

We still lost the match. But once again, Ariel walked away having impressed everyone except the people who mattered.

Over the next couple of years, I watched him play many matches. He was a genuinely gifted bowler, a decent batsman and a very sharp close-in fielder. Running was his only real limitation. But talent alone is rarely enough in India.

Ariel came from a lower-middle-class family. His family could not support his cricket financially. He could not afford club cricket. He was not particularly interested in academics and eventually became ineligible to continue representing the school team. Slowly, his cricket reached a dead end.

Years passed.

He later started a small music band in Ranchi and performed at local functions, events and perhaps even church gatherings. But one thing about Ariel never changed - his smile. It was infectious. So was his energy. He was one of those people who made conversations easy.

I passed out of school in 1997 and after that we gradually lost touch. Even during our final years in school, we hardly met because he had failed a couple of times academically and we were no longer in the same class. Later he continued his education privately and we mostly met only during inter-school cricket tournaments.

I met him once around 1999 when another school friend and I went to meet old friends in Ranchi. Ariel was exactly the same - warm, cheerful and welcoming. His family treated us like their own.

Years later, around 2011, I visited his house again when I was in Ranchi for a few months around my daughter’s birth and while preparing for my move to Malaysia. He was not home when I arrived, but his family once again welcomed me warmly. Ariel later came back and we spent some time together.

After that, our meetings became infrequent. Occasionally, whenever I visited Ranchi, we would meet over drinks.

Then came COVID.

And strangely enough, during the pandemic, our school batch suddenly became enthusiastic about organizing a reunion in Ranchi. I knew from the beginning that I probably would not attend, especially because of the pandemic, but as usual I involved myself actively in the planning so that my eventual withdrawal would not surprise anyone.

Ariel became part of the core organizing group because he was one of the few batchmates based in Ranchi. He helped tremendously. He visited resorts, negotiated prices and coordinated logistics. At one point, some people were unhappy with the deal he negotiated with a resort, so I spoke to the management over phone and together we managed to work out a much better arrangement.

Eventually, close to the reunion date, I informed everyone that I would not be able to attend. Soon after that, the entire reunion got postponed indefinitely. Ariel was disappointed. He had genuinely been looking forward to meeting everyone. This was sometime in the second half of 2020, after the first wave of the pandemic.

We remained in touch through phone calls, WhatsApp and social media. He spoke about the shoe shop he had opened and the struggles of running a small business. Several months later, during a WhatsApp video call with a few school friends, someone suggested adding Ariel to the call.

He answered.

And I remember feeling shocked the moment the screen opened. He was lying on a hospital bed with an oxygen mask on. He told us he had COVID.

If I remember correctly, this was during the beginning of the second wave. By then, my parents had already contracted COVID and recovered. A few years earlier, I myself had been hospitalized in Malaysia with a rare form of pneumonia and had experienced dangerously low oxygen levels.

So when Ariel told me that his oxygen saturation was around 88, I tried to reassure him. He had removed his oxygen mask while talking to us and he still sounded relatively stable. I told him I had seen patients in much worse condition recover fully. I told him everything would be alright. That he should wear the mask again, avoid talking too much and follow the doctors’ instructions carefully.

He became a little calmer.

But before ending the call, he asked me one more question.

“Will I be alright?”

I told him confidently, “Yes. One hundred percent.”

A week later, Ariel passed away. And even today, that question haunts me.

“Will I be alright?”

He was sitting alone in a dark hospital room, away from his loved ones, searching for reassurance and hope. I still wonder whether I gave him enough of it. I do not know.

What I do know is this - every time school friends now discuss reunions, I quietly stay away from the discussions. Because some absences change the meaning of gatherings forever.

And any reunion without you would never really feel complete my friend.