Shahid Saeed Ansari’s life is a juggle… and a struggle! By day, the wheelchair-bound cricketer, who represents the Indian team, practises his batting and wicketkeeping skills, and by night (7 pm to 11 pm), he negotiates the busy Malad traffic as a Zomato delivery agent. Ansari, 44, has played around 40 international matches for India since 2017, scoring one half-century besides numerous stumpings and sharp catches.

Shahid Saeed Ansari has always been in love with cricket despite losing sensation in both feet after a severe bout of fever at the age of one. His mother Shamim, 73, excitedly illustrates how he would crawl, climb and then jump over a three-foot wall adjoining their home to get to a nearby ground to play with his friends when he was a kid. “He would always say he’ll play for India one day, but we thought it was impossible,” Shamim tells mid-day in their modest 10 feet by 20 feet tenement in the narrow bylanes of Malwani, Malad.