IRE vs IND: Simi Singh can't wait to meet old friends
When he came to Ireland as a student, he had already given up on his dreams of making a career out of cricket.
Ireland will lock horns with India in a two-match T20I series, which gets underway from June 27. While there will be 11 players from the visiting team, one Indian-born player in Simi Singh will be donning the Irish colors. Albeit he hasn’t had a long international stint, his cricketing career has been pretty eventful. Simi had the ambition of representing India ever since his childhood.
He played for Punjab at the U-14, U-17 and U-19 level and got himself ever so close to fulfilling his ambitions. However, fate didn’t favor him as he was dropped from the U-19 team. When he came to Ireland as a student, he had already given up on his dreams of making a career out of cricket, but the country made him fall in love with the sport all over again.
“It is exciting to play against them”- Simi Singh
Relentless hard work meant that he went on to play for the national team, not India, but Ireland. On May 14, 2017, the all-rounder debuted for Ireland in an ODI versus New Zealand in Dublin. “I have grown up hoping to play for India. That was my ambition and now, I am playing against India. It is unbelievable, and emotions will run through when I take the field,” an emotional Singh told to Sportstar.
The 31-year old also has a childhood connect with players like Siddharth Kaul, the new entrant in the Indian team, and Yuzvendra Chahal, the leg-break bowler. “I have known Siddharth (Kaul) for years. We have played together in Mohali. Chahal and I were in DAV College in Chandigarh. So, it is exciting to play against them,” the Bathlana-born player remarked.
“Probably I will meet Kohli and Dhoni after the match. It is a big thing to be playing the same game with the two legends of the game. I know Siddharth well, and I will ask him to introduce me to them. Hopefully, that will help,” Simi added while expressing his desire to rub shoulders with the likes of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli.
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