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    Kashmir cricket is not washed out

    Synopsis

    The 2014-15 season is an important one for J&K after they made it to the Ranji Trophy quarterfinals last year.

    By Sidhanta Patnaik

    There was a sigh of relief on Tuesday, September 16, when the news of Parveez Rasool, the only international cricketer from Jammu and Kashmir, being alive and safe filtered through. Rasool was stuck in his Bijbehara house for over two weeks because of the floods in the state, and has shared his horrendous experience with the media.

    So far, the armed forces and the National Disaster Response Force have rescued more than 226,000 people, and Ranjeet Kalra, the chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Cricket Association’s (JKCA) media subcommittee, confirmed to Wisden India that “all cricketers in the state are safe”.

    But it will be long before normalcy returns to the valley. The natural disaster has had a severe impact on the cricket scenario in the state, and the extent of damage will get clearer only once JKCA start their audit. As of now, crores worth of Kashmir willow used for making bats have been washed away, and two venues where J&K play all their home games – Sheri-Kashmir Stadium in Srinagar and the Gandhi Memorial Science College (GMSC) ground in Jammu – are submerged.

    With the domestic season starting from October 19, JKCA have an enormous challenge to bring the two grounds back to shape and conduct practice sessions. “The Kashmir ground is very near to Jhelum river, and there is still four to five feet of water there. The GMSC ground is beside the Tawi river.

    The rains have stopped and we plan to bring the ground staff from Kashmir to Jammu so that at least one ground is ready at the earliest,” said Kalra. The bigger setback for JKCA is that last season they had invested in developing the grounds in SP College and Amar Singh College in Kashmir as alternative venues.

    But now the work has to start from scratch. Kalra is hopeful that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will help in restoring the state’s cricket infrastructure.

    “Help from BCCI is always welcome. It will be kind if they chip in and support us in rebuilding our damaged infrastructure,” he said. “It will not be easy to restore things in Srinagar. We have to really start from scratch, but we will try our best.”

    The 2014-15 season is an important one for J&K after they made it to the Ranji Trophy quarterfinals last year. The team members had a short camp in Srinagar and were playing in the Downtown Premier League (DPL) when nature struck.

    To make up for the lost time and gear up for the challenges that await, Ian, who is recovering from sickness, will go to Mumbai next week to play in the Kanga League, while Rasool intends to travel to Delhi.

    But from a team perspective, Ian feels that the need of the hour is to hold a camp outside the state. “It is not that JKCA is not taking care of us, but when natural calamities strike, there is very little you can do,” said Ian.

    “If the association wants, they can organise and send the team outside the state to some academy for camps. It is now a matter of someone taking the initiative.” That Ian has already shifted focus to cricket, days after surviving a lifethreatening situation, is a positive sign. Reflecting on the last few weeks, he said, “One day when we got up in the morning, the water was already on the fourth floor.

    There was no sign of life anywhere, and that’s when the thought of death crossed my mind.” While he was stuck in a precarious situation, Ian helped a group of people by arranging shikaras and volunteered in distributing relief funds. Like Ian, Shubham Khajuria, an India Under-19 cricketer, also contributed his bit.

    They were finally rescued on September 12. “I learnt the importance of having patience, and I will never ever again waste food. When bad times come, you don’t get a single grain,” reflected Khajuria.

    - Wisden India


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