Months after mother's demise and Delhi snub, Milind proves a point with double ton

Ranji Trophy 2018-19: Milind Kumar hit his maiden First-class double century on his side’s first Ranji Trophy match of the season against Manipur after they were reduced to 15 for 5.

Milind Kumar’s Whatsapp status still reads “Miss you maa.” It’s been almost five months; he hasn’t had the time or any significant reason to even think about changing it. Months, years, perhaps decades might not be enough to heal the pain of losing his mother. But on Thursday, far away from his Karol Bagh house in New Delhi, where his mother breathed her last, Milind took a small step towards normalcy personally and a significant one professionally in a completely different environment surrounded by a bunch new faces, whom he is yet to be familiar with.

Rescuing his new team Sikkim from a precarious situation of 15 for 5, Milind hit his maiden First-class double century on his side’s first Ranji Trophy match of the season against Manipur at the Jadavpur University Salt Lake Campus ground in Kolkata.

“Woh time bohut difficult tha... Abhi bhi recover nehi kar paya,” says Milind with a shrill in his voice. “Aj zarur woh khush hoti...”  Milind pauses to get his composure back and continues “Ab bas cricket hi hai, jo karna hai maa k lie hi karna hai.”

Milind’s heroic 202-run knock which took Sikkim to 299 for 9 at stumps was greater than just being a sporting miracle. It assured him that there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel. He just has to walk through it holding the cricket bat firm.

And yet, cricket, which he refers as his second love, too was about to be snatched away from him a few weeks after his mother had passed away. After the personal loss, he was about to receive another jolt in his cricket career. He was dropped from the Delhi team.

Not finding his name in the Delhi team - which he had been representing since his U-16 days and did so on a regular basis even till last season – for the Vijay Hazare domestic one-dayers shattered his confidence. What hurt him most was the “Tujh mein ab wo touch nehi hai,” comment from the selectors.

 

Ironically, Milind earned praise from one of India’s most successful captains Sourav Ganguly, who was present at the ground, using that same lost touch on Thursday evening.

Milind had made up his mind of moving out of Delhi after the Vijay Hazare snub. When his teammates, the ones he had been sharing the dressing room with for the past 7 years, were enjoying a great run in the tournament, going all the way to the finals, Milind was putting the hard yards in the nets. “I did not watch a single match, was busy with my practice,” he says with a lot of pride and hurt ego.

But there was a huge problem.  The deadline to register guest players had expired on September 1 and Milind now had nowhere to go. Even till the third week of October he was in danger of not getting a single game in the whole season.

That’s when the Sikkim Cricket Association and the Committee of Administrators (CoA) came to his rescue. CoA granted Sikkim, who were about to make their first appearance in the Ranji Trophy, special permission to sign professional players after their request.

Milind and two others – Himachal’s Bipul Sharma and Gujarat’s Ishwar Chaudhary - were signed by Sikkim in the last week of October.  

“I was in no position to make choices. I needed a team and they called me up so I happily accepted it,” Milind adds.

As it turned out, it was the 107-run sixth wicket stand between Milind and Bipul Sharma that bailed Sikkim out of trouble.

Milind was unbeaten on 202 with No. 11 Rai for company when stumps were called by the umpires. “There’s a lot of work left, jitna lamba ho sake khelna hai,” Milind says perhaps indicating more towards his life than the match.