Persuasive coach & willing father behind Kamboj's rise

IT'S not unusual for parents to go to any extent to make their children pursue sports of their choice. The story of Anshul Kamboj, India's latest Test debutant, is no different.

- FIROZ MIRZA @ Manchester

IT'S not unusual for parents to go to any extent to make their children pursue sports of their choice. The story of Anshul Kamboj, India's latest Test debutant, is no different. Father Udham Singh, a middle-class farmer from Fazilpur, Haryana, not only travelled around 80km every day for almost four years to make sure his overweight son got proper cricket training but also shifted his family to Karnal a few years later for the same reason.

Initially, Singh wanted Anshul to shed some weight and hence got him admitted to Rana Brother's Academy in Karnal when he was 11. But more than Anshul, it was a tiring task for his father. He had to wake up early to drop Anshul to the academy. "Anshul used to ride pillion with his father," Satish Rana, Anshul's childhood coach, told this daily from Karnal. "They had to leave as early as 4 AM to reach here by 5. Despite the difficult weather and long journey, the duo never got late."