Sports/Olympics / Feature and Column
Cricket-Panesar returns to roots for inspiration
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-08-11 10:45
LUTON, England, Aug 10 - England's new spin-bowling hero Monty Panesar
returned to his roots on Thursday and took a wicket with his first
delivery.
The 24-year-old left-arm spinner was back in his hometown of Luton, 40
kilometres outside London, where he enjoyed a game with a group of young
British Asians on a patch of grass in a housing estate better known for
race riots than cricket.
The wickets were painted trash bins, the ball was a tennis ball with tape
and the bats were bright red and made from plastic, courtesy of the
visiting Urban Cricket Roadshow.
The tall, bearded Panesar, dressed in jeans and trainers, grinned back
with the same pleasure he has shown in test matches against Younis Khan,
the batsman he removed at Headingley this week with "the best ball I've
bowled in test cricket."
"I always dreamt that I would one day play for England," Panesar, the
first Sikh to play for England, told reporters. "But I never thought
about popularity, or fame. I just didn't imagine it at all. I guess it is
just destiny that it is going to be like this."
Panesar, who produced two successive match-winning performances against
Pakistan in recent weeks, knows all about life in a tough place like the
Marsh Farm estate.
He was brought up by his immigrant Indian father Paramjit, a local
builder who specialises in fitting kitchens, in Wardown, a sprawl of
suburbia rescued from anonymity by the quality of its cricket ground.
Panesar may follow a line of great names -- including Derek Underwood and
Phil Edmonds -- as a classic spinner. But he is unique: a turban-wearing
crowd-pleaser, who has worked to improve his fumbling fielding, a modest,
almost bashful, man with whom all English cricket fans, but especially
the Asian community, can identify.
"VERY SPECIAL"
As he spoke, surrounded by microphones, cameras and tape-recorders, he
was prompted to recall his life 12 months ago as England were on their
way to a first Ashes series success since 1987.
"Last year, I was just playing for Northamptonshire," he said. "But I was
the same as everybody else about the Ashes series. I was so excited. I
watched it on television and it was something that was obviously very
special."
After taking 16 wickets to date in the series against Pakistan, Panesar
is almost certain to be selected for England's defence of the Ashes in
Australia.
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