Vidyadhar Paradkar knew Haseeb Hameed would go far when he first met him. He has, and it’s due in no small part to Paradkar
Vishal Dikshit05-Dec-20165:12
‘Sky is the limit for Haseeb Hameed’
A gangling boy from Lancashire had just finished a five-week cricket training programme in Mumbai, days before turning 15. The certificate he received from the academy said “Master” Haseeb Hameed was “hard working” and “sincere”. The highlight, though, was saved for near the end: “I would not be surprised if he plays for his country provided he works on his running skills.”In December 2011, Hameed was introduced to Vidyadhar Paradkar, a coach in Mumbai, by a local police officer whom Hameed’s father, Ismail, knew. The sole purpose of Hameed’s trip to India was to learn the basics of the game. Who knew he would make his Test debut in the same country, less than five years later?Paradkar had been eager to head to the Wankhede Stadium for the upcoming Test to watch his pupil bat, not knowing at the time that Hameed himself would be sitting in the stands for the match, an injury having changed his plans. Hameed’s injury sent him back home but his huge appetite for the game has made him return to Mumbai to watch the Test alongside his parents.”It would have been his first match in Mumbai, so I was eager to watch him,” Paradkar says. “I have already watched him on TV, but watching at the ground would have been different. I didn’t try for the tickets once I knew about his injury, so I’m not going anymore.”The ball will move around for the first half- to one hour and Haseeb is a great player of fast bowling. So if England batted first and he was playing, he could have scored a hundred by tea. It’s a hard track and good for batsmen like him.”Paradkar recalls the time he first met the 14-year-old Hameed and took him through the fundamentals of the game, and the similarities from then that he saw this year on television.”Watching the ball, and that your bat should come down in a line, are the two things I emphasised while working with him,” Paradkar says. “He picks up things very quickly. When he was playing those Tests, you could see he was watching the ball closely, which is the main criteria of batting.”I also told him to rotate the strike; you have to take singles. And now see, he was rotating the strike. Picking the gaps and going to the non-striker’s end are his forte.”He was a very, very quick learner. Initially he was not playing that straight, so I told him the check drive is the best solution.”I gave him some cone drills: keep your bat straight and hit the cone, keep your foot on the line of the ball, bring your bat down in a line, and he did it a hundred times. He would put a ball on a cone and try to hit it in all directions of the ground. He played three club matches at that time and remained not out in all of them. Then I knew he would go a long way.”Haseeb Hameed with Vidyadhar Paradkar in 2015•Vidyadhar ParadkarParadkar, 70, is a low-profile coach in south Mumbai, although he has mentored other international players, including Zaheer Khan and Ajinkya Rahane. He reminiscences about his days with Hameed while sitting in his modest one-bedroom house, surrounded by books on sportspersons, shiny cricket balls, a bat signed by Sachin Tendulkar, and albums laden with photographs of him coaching.He remembers the dedication with which Hameed put in relentless hours of work. Hameed came back to Paradkar at the end of 2015, in a different avatar and with a new level of commitment. By then he had represented England in Under-19 cricket, including making an unbeaten 91 in Perth, and had over a dozen Youth ODIs under his belt. He had made his first-class debut too, and had scored two half-centuries: a 234-ball 91 against Surrey and 63 against an Essex side that included Alastair Cook.”When he came the second time, he was hitting the ball very hard,” Paradkar says. “It was very hot at that time, so he would carry three to four pairs of gloves. But he would hydrate himself with lots of water and Electral, and he would never put the bat away, not even take his pads off. After finishing his batting, he would take throwdowns, have more hits and then come back to the nets. [He was obsessed]. He learnt the art of playing spin very well here. There are very good spinners at the maidan where he played.”Paradkar would take Hameed to Cross Maidan, across the road from the Bombay Gymkhana and about a kilometre from Wankhede Stadium. He would have one session from 7.30 to 9.30 and another in the evening from 4 to 6.30. Paradkar saw the strides Hameed had made in the time between his two stints and knew the biggest stage was not far away.”He was a much better batsman the second time he came. I was very sure at that time his Test debut would come soon. The way he would use his bat, the way he would play the ball from mid-off to midwicket with a straight bat.”My aim was to make him play all over the ground. A batsman who picks the line quickly and moves his feet around is a great batsman. I saw that in Haseeb. I felt he would go miles.”Hameed, Paradkar says, was very particular about the nuances of batting. He was inquisitive, curious, experimental and a “very good listener”. If the boy had a doubt, he would not hesitate to approach the coach, and would discuss things, in Hindi and English, instead of merely absorbing the answers and following them like rules.”If he nicked the ball in the nets, he would ask, ‘What went wrong? Was my bottom hand in the wrong position? Did my bat go to the side? Where was my head?'” Paradkar remembers.The certificate Haseeb Hameed received after his first spell with Vidyadhar Paradkar•Vidyadhar ParadkarHe speaks of the time Hameed tried a new stance. “He used to stay on the leg stump. So I told him: a batsman who doesn’t know where his off stump is will never become a good opening batsman. Then he asked me if staying on the off stump would help. I told him that would work if he would not allow the ball to hit the pad.”The next time in the nets he took an off-stump guard and did not take a single ball on the pads. He would experiment, he would try out new things.”Paradkar has coached hundreds of players since the 1970s – local boys, Under-19 players, Ranji aspirants, and many more. But in Hameed’s case, he says, for the first time he got to learn something from a student. Paradkar saw in Hameed’s deftness at being able to think of multiple shots for one delivery shades of a Mumbai batsman who too had trained a lot in the maidans in his teens.”No batsman tries to cut a ball that’s on the stumps,” Paradkar says. “But Haseeb takes his right foot back outside leg and then cuts. This is something new I saw. He has got three strokes for one kind of ball – one to the covers, one to mid-on by taking his right foot back, another to midwicket. Then where does the opposition captain place the field? This kind of a batsman makes it big. Sachin Tendulkar was like that.”He creates his own shots. I would tell him to make notes, write things down, and he did. That keeps you thinking about the game even when you are not on the field. When you have such students, even coaches can learn from them. I learnt this technique of putting the back foot outside leg and cutting the ball through point from him.”Just over six months after that second spell in Mumbai, Hameed climbed the run-scoring charts in the County Championship and was picked for the Bangladesh tour. One step away from the Test cap but realistic enough to not get carried away, even as England scrambled to find yet another opening partner for Cook.”When he was leaving for Bangladesh, he called me, saying, ‘I have been selected, I am going.’ He also said he wasn’t sure if he would get to play or not. Then he made his debut in India, that was a great thing. Since then, I haven’t spoken to him. He is injured now and maybe I’ll meet him if I get a call.When they last met, in 2015, Hameed and Paradkar shook hands on meeting at Lord’s for a Test sometime in the near future. Hameed also expressed his thanks to the coach in a thoughtful, one-page, hand-written letter, where he said that whatever he had learned from Paradkar he would use his whole career.”To Paradkar Sir, thank you for all your relentless efforts, dedication and hard work and of course your insight and expertise, knowledge over the last month. I have no doubt I have developed my game a lot under your watchful guidance and I have learnt things from you that I will use throughout my career.”That young boy who needed to work on his running has grown up quickly.
