Social Work and Cricket???

This is an incredible true story from the initial phase of my career. I was frequently visiting this Village called Simaria, in Puranpur, U.P for implementing a unique Project called “School Neighborhood Friendship Program”.


To implement this program, i had to secure all the support from the villagers mainly the Sarpanch, BDO and other leaders but most importantly the youth, with little professional experience i knew that, it is the Youth who can be your backbone to organize any activities in the Village. And I had to garner their support at any cost.


However, it was not so easy to get all of them together especially for a stranger from South India.

I found a gateway finally thats the Cricket, truly it is a religion, there was no dearth of followers in Simaria too.

I gathered the old sports equipments from the St. Jospeh's School where I was placed and brought to the village. We started playing, the numbers increased, now the youth were waiting for me to come and teach them.

Their strength in bowling and batting was admirable as they used to put their heart and soul in it, however fielding was pathetic truly like Lagan team where all were running together to fetch the ball.

Bowling styles too matched the Lagaan team ( Lagaan was released much after i believe) with some strange and funny actions.

Slowly they acquainted with all the rules of the game and started playing regularly thanks to vacant land in the village.


I used the time in the beginning of the game and end of the game every day to motivate them so that become more self dependent and sustainable.
The youth in the village were deprived of higher education, employment skills, entertainment etc due to various social factor. It was impossible for me to bring in so many changes in their life, however, i have made the beginning... which is much satisfying.

The Match:

It was time to prove their worth. So I have decided to organized a match between the Faculty of St. Joseph's school and the Village youth in the School Ground. Principal, Fr. Nobby himself was the captain for the host team. He was generous enough to arrange a feisty breakfast before the match.

The match began, the Host team who underestimated the village youth, surprised by their talents and lost the match with a good margin.

The next was with High school students unfortunately we lost, WE because i was also a member of the Village youth team

Well that was a beginning of a Heart to Heart relationship between two strangers and thats the beauty of work in Social Sector...