Around the stroke of lunch, batting on 99, Harvansh Singh Pangalia took off for the sprint of his life. The roar from the India Under-19 dressing room echoed in the empty stands of the MA Chidambaram Stadium. He removed the helmet, raised his bat to the dressing room, and turned to his right and bowed down towards his father Damandeep Singh, who was waving the tricolour from the stands. Next moment, he brought out the thigh-five celebration like the pehelwans.
An hour ago, as India’s ninth wicket fell with Harvansh on 45, it seemed even a 50 was beyond his reach. But in the company of Anmoljeet Singh, who defended with confidence to frustrate Australia, Harvansh put on a show of attacking batting. “This was for my father,” Harvansh later reflected on the century and the celebrations. “He had come all the way from Canada to watch me and I wanted to make it special for him,” Harvansh said.
In 2017, when Damandeep decided to move to Toronto—which is home to his elder brother and sister—he wanted to shift the entire family from Gandhidham in Saurashtra. With Harvansh making promising strides in age-group cricket, Canada was suggested as an ideal place to pursue cricket. “Since my entire family lives there, I wanted all of us to live together and be united. But Harvansh was adamant. He wanted to represent only India. He was telling me, I will fight it out here. If I’ve to play among the best, then it might as well happen here,” Damandeep recalls to The Indian Express.
Damandeep didn’t have second thoughts. “If I had put my foot down and insisted that he came along, he would have. But he had a dream and it was his first dream and as a father, I didn’t have it in me to shatter it,” Damandeep says. Having let his son chase his dream, Damandeep has to cope with the constant shuttling between India and Canada, where he drives trucks in Brampton. “Puthar wants me to be there because he feels that when I’m around, he will get more confidence. So I mostly come here when the season begins. Since it involves a lot of money, I have to work hard on the days I’m working. So when I’m in Toronto, I mostly don’t take off days and work for 15-16 hours,” he says.
Harvansh Singh with his father Damandeep. (Special arrangement)
Uncle’s support
For Damandeep, his elder brother has been a pillar of strength. With not much facility in the Gandhidham, Damandeep’s elder brother gifted Harvansh a bowling machine with which he trains at an indoor academy. “In Gandhidham, it is not easy to get net bowlers. If it is a match, everyone will come to play. But not to bowl. So Havansh will take the phone and keep calling them to ensure that they come in the morning. If not, the bowling machine will do the job,” Damandeep adds.
In Gandhidham, which lies in the Kutch region of Saurashtra, cricket remains a sport that is beyond reach, with just a couple of them even making it to the Ranji side. Damandeep says, there is none in the 200km radius who have made it big in top level cricket. But Harvansh has been bucking the trend since he was a 12-year-old, under the guidance of his coach Nakul.
“From the time he made the district Under-14 side, his progress has been steady. He has been scoring centuries so regularly that by the time he turned 15, he used to play with the Under-23 team. He trains at KDRC and at DPS, but it is the NCA zonal programs which have been of great help because he gets the exposure needed to go to the next level. Every time he goes to the NCA camps and comes back, he is a different player,” Damandeep says.
It showed on Day 2 as Harvansh put Australia’s attack to submission. Nine down for 402, he started farming the strike regularly and once he touched fifty, began to tee off. Out of the 90-run last wicket stand, Harvansh scored 72 off 57 deliveries, which included four boundaries and six sixes. With a bat-swing modelled on his idol Yuvraj Singh, his sixes cleared the ropes effortlessly. “In Gandhidham, a lot of them tell Harvansh that his bat swing is like Yuvraj. But he would be the first one to shut them saying, ‘There can be only one Yuvraj Singh’ and he would get angry if anyone repeated it.”
As Harvansh reached century, Damandeep’s phone kept ringing non-stop with his elder brother video-calling from Toronto. “His lessons will begin now. You can achieve success, but digesting it is the most difficult thing. We don’t have anyone around to guide or look up and learn. If he wants to play at the highest level, he should learn to handle all of it, only then he will grow. It is good he has made it to the U-19s, but there is still a long way to go,” Damandeep says waving the flag, as Harvansh thanks him again, when walking back to the pavilion after scoring 117 runs.
Brief scores:
India U19 492 (Harvansh Singh 117, Soham Patwardhan 63) vs Australia U19 142/3 (Oliver Peake 62 n.o).
