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A very ‘special’ cricket clinic

If you have these inner qualities you certainly get that ‘Special’ feeling and satisfaction at the end of the day that you have done something good.

One such person deserves plaudits for going out of his way to reach out to these Special Needs children when he conducted a cricket clinic for them at the Al Nasr Sports Club, Dubai.

Sudhakar Shetty, of Maxtalent, in coordination with Saathi, brought not only smiles on the faces of these children when he let them have a go with the bat and the ball on the newly-laid strip, but it also helped them (Maxtalent) spot talent in some of the children much to the amazement of even their parents.

It was such a joy to see Sadiq take a long run-up before going in to bowl, much like Australia’s Brett Lee and Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar or Taha and Brian play defensively like ‘The Wall’ Rahul Dravid.

Sudhakar and his support staff, including the boys he trains, made these children feel so special by giving each child equal attention and time that it made for a fantastic Friday morning.

Speaking on the sidelines, Sudhakar said: “It all started through a family friend who has a special child. We were discussing cricket when his son got very enthusiastic about it. He (the boy) started talking about boundaries (fours) and sixes, so I thought being a handicap child if he is so passionate about the game then why not do something about it.

“And Maxtalent is one organisation which has always been supportive and connected because of our reach and having qualified coaches we thought lets do something for these children.

“We feel that they deserve it like anyone else. I personally feel we are lucky and we can make them lucky.

“We (Maxtalent) always wanted to do social activities and charities. It’s part of our culture so we took this as an opportunity and said lets get going.

“The coordination of Saathi who have done a marvellous job, too helped make this day possible. Because these are special children. They need special treatment. There is a special way how to handle them. I myself went for three days to some organisations to get first hand experience of how best it could be done. To be very honest I was nervous at first, because the experience is different of handling these children. But at the end of it we are sportsmen. We have the adaptability. Secondly, sports has no barriers.

“I also train youngsters so it was only a matter of getting to their (special needs children) level of understanding and the rest is what we all saw today.

“We would like to do it on a regular basis. Whenever an opportunity allows us we will have matches for them. That’s the world we also need to take them with us as we go along because they have every right as anyone else to get the best out of it. Hence we labelled the outing ‘Lets be a little more human’. Hopefully, this event will surely be a catalyst for many more such events to come.