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On home turf
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The visiting US 11 has a Hyderabadi flavour, with its coach, manager, skipper and players hailing from the land. Syeda Farida catches up with them
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We don't have that kind of time to play a 90-overs game there
PHOTO: G. KRISHNASWAMY
HYDERABADI CONNECTION Some of the US 11 members trace their origin to our Nawabi city
On a breezy weekend morning at the ECIL Grounds, a team of young cricketers is busy with net practise, and feverishly at it. It is the visiting US 11 a.k.a. USA Colts here for the Moin-ud-Dowla Gold Cup cricket tournament. What makes this team striking especially is its Hyderabad connection.
Skipper Amer Afzaluddin (with a zee) is a finance graduate and first generation Hyderabadi from Georgia. Dennis Vengala works for Nokia and comes in at the middle order. Safdar Syed, an accounts graduate from Georgia, fits into the opening and middle order slot with equal ease. Farhaan Syed is the medium pacer from Chicago and a high school student.
Married to a Hyderabadi, coach Shahzad Ahmed, popularly known as Elvis Presley with the team (an avid Mohammed Rafi and Kishore Kumar buff he has a roaring recording career for a hobby), has played for Pakistan before he moved to the US and represented the latter at the World Cup. As for Khurram Syed, when not managing the team he manages a chain of office stores there.
"Like BCCI we have the US Cricket Association. The team that has come here is the USA `A'. We have players from Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey and other states. Mostly it is the Asians who are promoting this sport in the US. We have 150 teams in Chicago, 200 in New York and over 700 cricket clubs and associations all over the US now," he says.
All for 20:20
Agrees Amer, "I played for under 15 when I was in Hyderabad. After I got to know about the game there, I joined in. I grew up watching Azhar. Probably my batting style is similar. I like Yuvraj Singh as well."
Ask him about the experience in Hyderabad during the championship, and he, along with his team, vouches for 20:20. "We can beat anyone on that," he says. "The issue is of time. We don't have that kind of time to play a 90-overs game there," says Dennis.
The team has played against New Zealand, Australia, Zimbabwe, UAE and other countries. As also an India-Pakistan match, Azharuddin 11 versus Rizwan-us-zama 11, for Gujarat earthquake relief fund. The packed stadium for that match was elementary in bringing cricket in the US into limelight, the team observes.
Unlike endorsement and promotions that go in its favour in this part of the world, keeping the spirit of the game alive in the land of NBA and rugby is obviously tough. And for a career, probably not, says the foursome.
"You miss a day at work. And you don't get paid for playing either. There is no funding. Even a Pepsi that sponsors cricket here backs a baseball and soccer out there. Then there are visa issues that come in the way of tours. We had to change the team, which is a mix of nationalities, three times for this tournament. Our four good bowlers could not make it to the match because of visa problems," says Shahzad.
But there is a reason to cheer. In its uplifting never say die Hyderabadi zeal, the team has lined up some plans. On the anvil for starters is a stadium in Village of Hoffman Estates. "It will have a seating capacity of 15,000. The mayor has been very cooperative. The work will start in 2-3 months and we plan to have it up by next June staging an international match," says Shahzad.
For the moment, as they pad up for the match, they still can't stop comparing Devon Avenue in Chicago with Chanchalguda minus the cows and naalas as also the upmarket Bartlett that is much like apna Banjara Hills.
And then the topic shifts to the Hyderabadi biryani. "The taste is surely different here. Probably it's the water," reflects Khurram.
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