All work and play
Midday — February 24, 2005

Bowlers hunt in pairs they say. The best example of this was the deadly Dennis Lillee and thunderous Jeff Thomson. Now, Tata Chemicals is taking a two-pronged approach to find sporting talent and open up academic avenues for Mumbai's students in municipal schools. Under a programme called 'Desh Ko Arpan', the company is providing cricket and football coaching and tutoring Std IX students in three subjects — English, Maths and Science — to help them do well in their vital Std X exams. The Tata programme that began this month will run right till December 2005.

There are 450 students being coached in football and 600 are getting cricket coaching. Besides sports, 980 students will also get extra academic coaching. The announcement was made at the Cricket Club of India, with club president Raj Singh Dungarpur saying, "Cricket has reached the rural areas now and the administration must follow," Sports presenter Harsha Bhogle believes Mumbai's next great cricketer will come from an economically impoverished background as the upper class does not have the grit and the middle class is bogged down by academic pressure.

According to him, for the backward, cricket will be a way out of the ghetto. The loudest applause though must go to the city's Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation because it has provided space for the company to start coaching kids at the grounds. As the thwack of leather meeting willow resounds at a Sion-Chunabhatti ground where the scheme is already underway, one can only say, may we find the next Einstein, the next Pele and another Sachin Tendulkar in Mumbai's class rooms and maidans.