23 May,2015 08:10 AM IST | | Subodh Mayure
India's blind cricket team captain Shekar Nayak is confident of doing well on their tour of England
Shekar Nayak
India's blind cricket team captain Shekar Nayak is confident of doing well on their tour of England.
Shekar Nayak
"We have very good players and prepared very hard for this tour," a confident Nayak told mid-day before boarding his flight to London yesterday.
His team's poor financial health is the only thing that worries the skipper. "My monthly income is just around R13,000. I requested the sports ministry for a government job, but I am yet to get one," said Nayak, the 2014 T20 World Cup-winning captain, who works with Samarthanam Trust for the disabled as a sports coordinator in Karnataka.
If this is the state of the players who represent India, one shudders to think about the financial state of 35,000 blind cricketers in this country.
Nayak lost his parents when he was a kid. He spent his childhood years in a hostel and ended being an Arts graduate. Countless cricket lovers including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar congratulated his blind team on their World Cup triumph. However, skipper Nayak is waiting for some more encouraging words from the current Indian team. "After winning the World Cup no one from Team India congratulated us except Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan, who tweeted about us," said Nayak.
The Team
>> Shekar Nayak (Karnataka)
>> Prakash Jayaramiah (Karnataka)
>> Deepak (Haryana)
>> Durga Rao (Andhra Pradesh)
>> Vishnu (Kerala)
>> Madhu (Telangana)
>> Ajay Kumar Reddy (Andhra)
>> Dunna Venkatesh (Andhra)
>> Ganesh M (Gujarat)
>> Ketan Patel (Gujarat)
>> Mohd Jaffar Iqbal (Odisha)
>> Tejinder Pal Singh (Punjab)
>> Sonu Golkar (Madhya Pradesh)
