From dusty Aligarh bylanes to IPL riches: Rinku Singh's rise

A dilapidated, shoebox-sized room stands within the compound of an LPG distribution company’s storage facility near the Aligarh Stadium in Uttar Pradesh. Not long ago, these claustrophobic confines had nine people jostling for stale air. It stood festooned for an interlude before the most famous resident of this tin-roof shanty decided it was time for the winds of change to sweep them away.

Rinku Singh may have moved into a relatively swell house not far away and bought a car to reflect improved fortunes, but cardboard mattresses from a time not forgotten are still warm from rose-tinted nostalgia, as is the motorcycle (a man of the series award) his father used to deliver LPG cylinders on.

Rinku thought he ‘lucked out’ when Kings XI Punjab picked him up for the 2017 edition of the Indian Premier League for Rs 10 lakh as a middle-order batsman who could chip in with off-spin. He did in the sense that he was able to pay off the debts, a large share of those kept the family in crutches for long, but a middle-class life was still the luxury he sought.

With education having escaped him, rather he fled from it after failing his ninth standard exams at the Delhi Public School (sports quota), he relied on cricket to save him from the drudgery of his existence, and the possible career-option as a domestic worker. Though the situation at home was bad, his father couldn’t make ends meet, an elder brother worked as a rickshaw driver and the other worked at a coaching institute, Rinku convinced himself that he didn’t have to take up the job of sweeping the streets for a nosh.

Pleased, though, with a patch of guilt, Rinku excused himself from the daily-wage way of life. He remained a pillar of strength from a moral standpoint but not much else. Cricket needed his attention as axiomatically as he needed the distraction. Reflectively, fourteen hours a day were given to his craft.

Scrimpy allowances from his stints with UP’s under-16 and under-19 teams were useful but not enough. Making it to the U-19 World Cup squad would have alleviated the situation to a degree but he didn’t make the cut. Warming the bench for Punjab in the IPL was good. Still not enough.

Then, Kolkata Knight Riders bought his services for Rs 80 lakh during the 2018 auction after the scouts witnessed his 31-ball 91 at Mumbai Indians’ trials. They also retained him for two seasons subsequently despite him putting up only 66 runs in nine games for them.

Sure, he compiled 953 runs in ten games at an average of 105.88 - third highest in the four-day format in the 2018-19 Ranji season - and came up with some swashbuckling, if negligible, knocks in consequent domestic limited-over tournaments, but numbers don’t convey what Rinku brings to the table. At least, that’s what you’re led to believe in hearing Abhishek Nayar, head coach at the KKR Academy, speak of the youngster.

“One of the things that stands about him is that he is a team player. I know people say that about a lot of cricketers but he truly is,” says Nayar. “I have never seen anyone give so much to the team he plays for. He’s all into them, and he’s always happy for whoever does well in his team. It’s never a facade with him. He really is just happy to be out there with these players and doing what he does.”

“What he has been through is why he is so good at what he does. He knows where he has come from and that pushes him to do better than kids from big cities. He knows he has to work that much harder. It isn’t easy coming from where he has and seeing the things he has. In that sense, this is an achievement but I foresee him doing more.”

Sunil Joshi, the former Karnataka player and current UP coach, doesn’t veer from Nayar’s perspective. “He is one of the most brilliant cricketers I have seen in a long, long time. He is so talented, he has every shot in the book and more importantly, he has the temperament to succeed in the long format. Many thought him to be a one-trick pony catering to the shortest format but he has shown that he is much more than that in the last couple of seasons for UP. He is a coach’s delight. He is one of those players you barely have to teach. The only thing I ask him to focus on is his patience and he has been doing that relentlessly. He is also such a team player. It’s wonderful to have someone like him in the side,” says Joshi.