27 October,2009 07:39 AM IST | | Anand I Naik
Former test cricketer Dhiraj Parsana tells mid day how he attended to wickets to earn his crust during club stints in England. Today, he is the bcci's Chief West Zone curatoru00a0
Fate sometimes unfolds in ways one can never imagine. Something similar happened to Dhiraj Parsana and little did he know how one small incident would turn into a life-enriching experience.
One of the few Test players produced by Gujarat, Parsana is now the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) chief West Zone curator. He is also very respected not just within his tribe but also among cricketers.
"I have managed to stay connected with cricket only because I became a curator. I played top-class cricket for close to 20 years but I have spent about 30 years preparing wickets. It has been one of the best things to have happened to me," Parsana told MiD DAY. He was responsible for the Reliance Stadium track which
produced a high-scoring thriller in Vadodara on Sunday.
But when Parsana was playing cricket, little did he know his life would take an unusual turn. "In the early 1970s, I went to England to play club cricket. I did not know English, so I could not work anywhere like other cricketers. But some of the guys knew that I came from a family of farmers. So they told me to work on the ground," said Parsana, who played two Tests against the West Indies in 1978-79.
"Initially, I was told to mow the grass and mark boundaries. After some time though, I started understanding pitches and how to take care of them," Parsana recalled. But things didn't go smoothly. Especially when other Indian cricketers heard about his pitch activities.
"Bishan Singh Bedi, Mohinder Amarnath, Brijesh Patel and Uday Joshi, who were also playing in England at that time, came to know about my job and were shocked. They were amazed that I could do something like this. But I told them that I don't have a problem and like what I am doing. I was not ashamed about it," he said.
Working on the ground and the pitch was a great learning experience for Parsana and his big break came in 1982 when a new ground was being prepared in Ahmedabad.
"Polly Umrigar called me and offered me the job of a curator at Motera. I could not have asked for more. It was a great opportunity for me to become a full-time curator and I accepted it immediately," Parsana said.
It was then that Parsana decided to enhance his knowledge. "Whatever you learn will never be enough when it comes to wickets. So I decided to go to the LD Engineering College, where I got a lot of help from AR Gandhi.
He taught me a lot about different kinds of soil," said Parsana. Since then, he has been a regular feature at Motera and was later promoted to Chief Curator of West Zone by the BCCI.
"These years have been very fulfilling for me. I never thought I would be associated with the game for so long.
u00a0Cricket has always been an integral part of my life and it continues to be only because I became a curator."
