Today, neither the coach nor the boy has any regrets about the change. Bhupinder Singh has recently been named to lead the Delhi Under-19 team in this year's Cooch Behar Trophy.

Bhupinder Singh's elevation as skipper of the Delhi Under-19 squad is another feather in the the cap of IG Stadium coaching centre. Last year, the centre's trainee Amit Bhandari represented India Under-19 in the Mini World Cup in South Africa.

In fact, Naveen Asrani and Pankaj Joshi, both of whom led Delhi u-19 teams in the past, are also from the centre.

Bhupinder, an alert and agile wicketkeeper, represented Delhi in Merchant Trophy (U-16) for three years (from 1993-94 to 1995-96) and rose the lead the North Zone side in his last year in that age category.

Bhupinder's six catches behind the wicket in the match against Himachal at Palam grounds is a record for a keeper in an innings.

Although he comes from a poor family (his father works in a petrol pump), ``he has hunger for success,'' says his coach. ``The boy travels almost 20 kilometres daily from his residence to the centre for training. Such is his dedication for the game,'' he adds.

In fact, Arun Bhardwaj (now the coach at IG Stadium, along with Tandon) helped him to get a substantial scholarship for two successive years.

Bhupinder Singh has already played in the Under-19 section for the last two years and was a member of the Rest of India team for the Scindia Trophy at Lucknow. Last season, he kept wickets for the Delhi senior team against Jammu and Kashmir in the North Zone one-day match that preceeded the Ranji Trophy encounter at the Kotla. A first-year student of PGDAV, Bhupinder plays for Winsom Club in the DDCA league and turns up for Chand Khanna in local tournaments.

Besides Bhupinder Singh, a large number of the stadium trainees are already playing for Delhi-16 and u-19 teams. They include Sunil Joshi (he struck nine centuries in various tournaments last season), Suhail Rauf, Sidharth Verma, Kuldeep Singh, Sandeep Rana and Rohit Malik. Gautam Gambhir, Rajiv Uniyal, Kuldeep Singh, Tony Singh and Amit Sharma played in Merchant Trophy (under-16 tournaments).

Bhupinder Singh is the latest of the IG Stadium trainees to get recognition at the state level. Besides Amit Bhandai and Bhupinder Singh, Pankaj Joshi, Gautam Gambhir and Rakesh Raman Jha have also been called for Ranji trials this year, a clear indication that the stadium is slowly becoming another centre to churn out talented cricketers for the state. Most state-level cricketers used to come from the National Stadium centre earlier. The healthier the competition among the coaching centres and academies, the better for the players and the game.