His police officer mother didn’t want cricket to be Sachin Dhas’ focus in life but the father knew that he was destined to make it big on the 22-yard strip despite spending a better part of his life training on 11-yard grass tracks that pass for infrastructure in his home-town Beed.
On Tuesday, his 96-run knock, along with skipper Uday Saharan’s 81, was a key factor in ensuring that India sneaked into the age-group show-piece’s final for a fifth consecutive time.
“You only have half pitches over here (in Beed). Sachin came here with his father when he was four and a half years old and even before going to South Africa, he trained on half turfs,” said an ecstatic Sheikh Azhar, the area’s most famous coach who shaped Dhas’ early years.
