Deep lights up smile on his mother's face

Ranchi: Akash Deep’s life of poverty, grief and a dream which wouldn’t rest would have flashed in front of him when he dismissed Zak Crawley in only his second over as a Test cricketer for India. 

The celebrations came quick, but before he could settle into the excited embrace of his team-mates, the umpire told them all to wait a while. Deep looked around confused. 

Crawley, whose off stump still lay dead a few feet from its original position, waited with his left hand on his hip. He had just seen the ball angled towards the slip cordon land on a crack, change direction and come in to slip between his bat and pad. He was reeling. 

The third umpire, meanwhile, was checking for a no-ball. Seconds in, umpire Rod Tucker’s walkie-talkie told him what he had guessed all along. Deep had overstepped. 

Deep’s face said it all. The camera also showed his family in the stands. They had their hands on their heads, mouths agape.

For a family which has barely caught a break, this was the moment of redemption, and it must have seemed like even that was snatched from them. And then, Deep did what he has done for the family for close to a decade now: give them a reason to smile. 

In his fifth over, he got Ben Duckett to nick one to Dhruv Jurel behind the stumps for his first legitimate scalp in Test cricket. It was his reward for being relentless in his first spell so far. 

In the fourth ball of the same over, a smart DRS review fetched him the wicket of Ollie Pope, who reckoned dancing down the track might save him from a leg before wicket decision. It didn’t because he hadn’t come ahead enough, and the ball which jagged in from outside the off stump was headed onto the stumps. 

Deep was on fire. India were on top. It surely couldn’t get better, or could it?

The fifth ball of his sixth over is identical to the one which dismissed Crawley the first time around.  It was quick, it was coming in off the pitch, and it stayed a smidge low. Crawley’s long frame wouldn’t let him bring his bat down in time. Bang!

Deep’s spell thus far read: 6-0-20-3. He was taken off the attack after seven overs, and the spells which followed didn’t yield as much as he finished the day with figures of 17-0-70-3, but his stamp on the game was indelible. 

It’s a stamp which comes sutured with a painful history. 

Deep was never destined to be a cricketer, let alone a pace bowler for India. His father insisted that he stay away from cricket and get into a government job. It’s the mindset you couldn’t escape in Sasaram, Bihar. 

Deep, however, snuck around playing any kind of cricket he could while lying about it to his folks and the village at large. Endearing as the story was until then, the vagaries of life revealed its ugly side. 

Deep lost his father and his elder brother within six months of each other. Devastated, he moved to Delhi to stay with his elder sister before moving to Kolkata to take up his friend’s offer to play club cricket.   

He worked his way through age-group cricket before making it to Bengal’s Ranji Trophy team in 2019. He was then roped in by Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021. While in the Covid-19 bubble, Deep lost his aunt, and his sister-in-law, and nearly saw his mum pass on. 

Had it not been for his effort in gathering oxygen cylinders, Ladduma Devi would not have seen the light of day, let alone feel the warmth of her son’s fingers when he touched her feet for her blessings after receiving the Test cap from Rahul Dravid on Friday.

Indian cricket has seen dime-a-dozen stories of this sort. Why, even Deep’s team-mates have stories for days, but there is something about this tale which is different. Perhaps the unmistakable sadness in Deep’s eyes lends to this sense.