NUH (HARYANA): As a child, Shahbaz Ahmed would listen to the cricket commentary of Jasdev Singh and Sushil Doshi on radio that his grandfather was hooked to. Mohammad Ishaq, 73, cannot believe that one day the commentary could be about his grandson. “That’ll be my happiest day, when he plays for the country,” he says.
That day may not be far off. Shahbaz, 27, is part of Team India’s ODI squad in Zimbabwe as replacement for the injury-racked Washington Sundar. A slow left-arm spinner and effective lower middle-order southpaw, Shahbaz plies his trade for Bengal and RCB. But he comes from the Muslim-majority Nuh in Haryana’s Mewat, named as India’s most backward district by Niti Aayog.
