ON a misty morning almost 10 years ago, an austere, unassuming sports hostel in Kanpur was all aflutter. Everyone had smiles on their faces—the young boys who ran up the stairs with their colourful kites; the warden who shouted at them to be careful on their way up; and the older, cooler, more cynical residents who passed succinct remarks about the world in general and their colleagues in particular.

Through a maze of flat mattresses and small cupboards, in one corner—given pride of place by a tattered, old sheet for a curtain—lived the reason for the euphoria. In a six-by-six space, with a small bed, a prayer mat, and a little wooden locker (with room only to stand with your elbows tucked in), Mohammad Kaif welcomed me with an uncertain grin.

It was his first brush with an ‘outstation’ journalist who had come to town specially to meet him, and Kaif’s laconic barrier took a while to breach. But he knew there would be many more such visits since he had been tipped to make it to the Indian team in the upcoming Test series against South Africa.

Kaif, then barely 20, walked me around the Green Park stadium, which had been his home for the last seven years. “I was sitting there,” he said, pointing to a place over the giant manual scoreboard, “when I saw Sachin Tendulkar batting against West Indies in a one-day match. I knew at that moment that I wanted to play cricket for India, and nothing else.”

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