Indian Cricket League has proved that is created to give an equal opportunity by signing up the local boy.  Someone who has worked as an attendant at McDonalds to Income Tax Employee and now has signed up a Rs 70 lakh contract with the Indian Cricket League (ICL).  Life has taken one full cirlce for Love Ablish, who is currently honing his skills at the ICL camp in Chennai.

 

Before leaving for Chennai, local lad Ablish, 24, spoke to Newsline. Hailing from a humble family, this Doraha-based cricketer is popularly known as "Shakti" in the neighbouring villages for the lightning speed of his bowling.  "Cricket has given me every thing. If I would not have been a cricketer, life would have been very different for me.

 

By God’s grace, in a very short time, I have achieved almost everything and the ICL has been a boon for my career. My parents are now asking me to get married," Ablish says.

Entering the cricket pitch at an age when most of the players think of making a career and begin leaving the game, Ablish stood tall against all odds and proved time and again that he has it in him to turn every tide. Son of a small time shoe merchant, Raj Kumar Sharma, Ablish rook up the game seriously when he was 18-years-old and was quickly selected for the Ludhiana District Under-19 cricket team in 2000-2001. Proving the selectors right, he notched 25 wickets in five matches. As a reward of his performance he was selected for the Ranji Trophy camp. In the same year he played in the Punjab Under-19 cricket team and played three one day matches in which he notched six wickets.

Before joining the ICL, Ablish played eight Ranji Trophy matches and took 21 wickets at an average of 26.38 runs with best figures of 5 for 40 against Gujarat in December 2006. He has played in prestigious tournaments like the JP Atray trophy and the Katoch trophy. He also got a chance to chisel his bowling skills under the guidance of Dennis Lillee when he attended a month-long coaching camp at the MRF Pace Foundation, Bangalore.

 

For the past couple of years, Ablish has been at the peak of his form. He says he learnt a great deal from Lillee and it was his consistency that got him selected by the ICL.  I am quite excited about my new assignment and looking to play an important role for my team,he says. Ablish gives all the credit for his success to the Ludhiana District Cricket Association secretary Vinod Chitkara. "Vinod sir has done a lot for me. I might not be able to represent the national team, but I’ll do my best to prove that all his efforts to promote me do not go futile."

Source: Express India

3.21 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."