Son of a groundsman makes his debut for Mumbai U16 side

Satyam Chaudhary, the son of a groundsman Arun Chaudhary, made his debut for Mumbai U16 side on Friday in the Vijay Merchant Trophy game against Baroda. Arun works for the Santacruz Lions Club ground and it is not the first time when the son of a groundsman has a liking for the sport. The likes of Eknath Solkar and Ankush Jaiswal also came from the same background amongst whom the former went on to play for India. However, Satyam would also love to play for the country and make his family proud.

Satyam got a great opportunity to ease into his first day of his career at the U16 level and enjoyed Mumbai batsmen plunder the opposition as they piled on 329 runs for the loss of just two wickets. The leg-spinner will surely get a chance to show his skills with the ball on the second day as the team will look to eke out a result in the three-day match. He would hope to shine in his very first and get noticed by everyone around in the domestic circuit.

An all-rounder off the field

Satyam attends the school at night in Santacruz after playing cricket throughout the day. He is also a great Karate exponent and has won gold medals in U-52 and U-65 weight category. He learnt his cricketing basics at the same ground where his father worked for almost 26 years and was spotted by the former Indian footballer Dinesh Nair, Anil Muzumdar and Nilesh Walawalkar. “They [Muzumdar and Walawalkar] encouraged me to bowl leg-spin when I started playing cricket three years ago and Dinesh sir provided me with equipment,” he told mid-day in an interview.

Also, he was trained under the watchful eyes of left-arm spin legend Padmakar Shivalkar at Shivaji Park. “Shivalkar sir encouraged me to flight the ball while bowling my leg-spin. This helped me claim more wickets,” he added. The talented bowler was picked after being the highest wicket-taker with 21 wickets for Sunil Gavaskar XI in the Payyade Trophy U-16 selection tournament.