In 2017, India has seen the emergence of two very fine young talents, Hardik Pandya and Kuldeep Yadav. Both have proved to be critical for India when chips were down this year. Kuldeep made his test debut against Australia in March and bamboozled the Aussies right on the first day with his impeccable googlies picking up a four-wicket haul.
3 months later he got his maiden ODI cap on West Indies tour in Trinidad. Since then he has been making giant strides in limited over formats. Recently he also became the first Indian spinner to take a hat-trick in ODI cricket against Australia at Kolkata. But do you know that India’s rising star once decided to end his life when he was a teenager?
Yes! You read it right! Kuldeep contemplated suicide when he was 13 years of age after being dropped from U-15 Uttar Pradesh team. He explained that it happens to everyone in heat of the moment. “I had worked hard for my selection, but when I was not picked, I mentioned suicide in frustration. It happens to everyone in the heat of the moment,” he told Hindustan Times.
Being the first left-arm chinaman to come from India, Kuldeep is now permanent in India’s ODI and T20I setup. He and Chahal have formed a lethal spin duo. The fact that it is very difficult to pick googly from his hand gives him the element of X-Factor. He has played 2 tests, 12 ODIS and 5 T20Is for India picking 9, 19 and 6 wickets respectively. It’s still early days in his career and the young man has got a lot of potentials.
Notable cricketers to contemplate suicide include Andre Nel and Brad Hogg. Nel tried to commit suicide in October 2010 after 3 women, one of them being a prostitute claimed that the former South African fast bowler has slept with them. Retirement and marriage breakdown made Brad Hogg think about ending his life as he reveals in his autobiography. Hogg still turns up to play the BBL at the age of 45.
– by Atharva Apte