FASTER PANKAJSINGH BEGAN HIS RUN-UP IN BANGLORE SHOP.
BANGALORE, December 20: It was like a Twenty20 match for him daily - dividing his time between practising cricket in the morning and working in a sweetmeat shop in the evening.

If you had visited Bangalore in 2003-04, you would have probably seen rookie paceman Pankaj Singh supervising sales at Anand Sweets on the upmarket Commercial Street. You may not have spotted his cricketing talent then; but Anand Dadu, proprietor of the shop, certainly had. "He is a sweet boy, and he deserves a place in the Indian side," said Dadu, who supported the fast bowler, now in Australia hoping to make a mark on his maiden tour.

The 22-year-old's inspirational story would definitely elicit a 'howzzat'. Born in a poor family in a small UP village, Pankaj first came to Bangalore with the Mohammadan Sporting cricket team from Kolkata for the Brijesh Patel Cricket Academy (BPCA) tournament in 2003-04. At the end of the tourney, Munawar Ali, the Sporting manager, requested Dadu, one of the sponsors, to take care of him.

"He had no money or basic education. All he could do was to bowl fast. I employed him in our Commercial Street shop and rented a small room for him. The boy didn't have a pair of decent cricket shoes. I bought him kit before he played the BPCA matches," says Anand.

Despite the continuous struggle, a determined Pankaj stuck to his task - playing at BPCA and working in the shop for over six months - before the Patel, then secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association, spotted him. He had Pankaj sent to the MRF Pace Foundation, Chennai, for a two-month stint.

After impressing TA Sekhar at the MRF camp, Pankaj was sent to Rajasthan, who were looking for new pacemen. There, Pankaj earned his Ranji cap. He became the leading wicket-taker in the domestic league - with 25 scalps - before the call for the Indian side came.

"After he was selected, Pankaj called and thanked me. 'I will never forget Anand Sweets and the time I worked and learnt the ropes in Bangalore,' he told me," says a beaming Anand.