“Before that, I had this pride of being a cricketer myself,” says Sanjiv Dubey, a Sydney cricket coach and proud collector of some ‘priceless’ memorabilia.
Highlights:
- The Indian cricket team visited Australia from November to January.
- Sanjiv Dubey has received a bat signed by almost all the Indian cricketers.
- Dubey, a cricket coach has played with many Indian cricketers.
A few hours with Sachin Tendulkar changed Sanjiv Dubey’s outlook.
“I used to bowl on the nets for Indian players at the SCG," he says.
"On that day, I bowled to Sachin paaji for almost four hours to the extent that my elbow was sore.
"The next day Sachin scored a hundred. And he thanked me for the practice he had with me. I felt so great, and I wanted to have a memory of that day. So I asked Sachin for an autograph on my bat which he happily did. That is how I started collecting autographs of the cricketers.”
Listen to the story in Sanjiv Dubey's words:
This year, Sanjiv Dubey received a bat with autographs of almost all the Indian cricketers.
“Alas! Washington Sundar is not there,” says Mr Dubey.
Once he got Sachin Tendulkar’s autograph, he loved the feeling and wanted more - his cricketing background helped to achieve his goal.
Source: Supplied by Sanjiv Dubey
Being a cricketer himself, Sanjiv has had a good relationship with the Indian cricket team members.
“I am lucky that I always have a friend on the team. This year Kuldeep Yadav was there who is also from UP and like a younger brother to me. So I asked him to get all the autographs for me on a bat,” reveals Mr Dubey, accepting that it is not easy to get a collection of this nature for a fan.
Sanjiv has six such bats with entire team’s autographs from the Indian teams last six tours to Australia.
Source: Supplied by Sanjiv Dubey
“Luckily, I always had someone in the team to help me with this. Earlier there was Sanjay Bangar, then Piyush Chawla and now Kuldeep,” says Mr Dubey.
Now, it has become a passion for Sanjiv to collect these bats. So, he is already waiting for the next time the Indian cricket team visits Australia.
This year he could not meet the team because of Covid restrictions, but his prized bat is a ‘priceless memory’ of the test series which India won beating Australia 2-1.
