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Debasis Sen : India U19 cricketer Siddharth Yadav should credit his father's insistence for grooming him into a cricketer. Son of a shopkeeper, Siddharth’s family members wanted him to concentrate on his studies but his father Shravan had other ideas. Sravan, who runs a grocery store in Kotgaon in Ghaziabad wanted his son to become a cricketer. Young Siddharth had to struggle a lot to reach where he is now.

Siddharth’s story is perfect example of a cricketer who have to face a lot of difficulties at the initial level in small towns. Siddharth started his journey as a cricketer at the age of 8. His father sacrificed a lot to see him develop as a cricketer. Shravan used to take his son to a nearby ground for him to practice batting. He used to close his shop early to see his son get batting practice for 3 hours. The shop would close at 2 in the afternoon. He used to open the shop again when he returned at six in the evening.

Initially Siddharth did not get the opportunity to train under a good coach in Ghaziabad. His father did not allow him to play in tournaments far away. One fine day, Shravan got a call from Tarak Sinha, coach of Rishabh Pant who wanted him to bring his son to his camp. It was then when Shravan decided to send Siddharth to Sonnet club which was 35-40 kms from Ghaziabad. He used to drop Siddharth at the railway station at 5:30 am to take a train to Delhi. Since, it was getting very difficult to commute between Ghaziabad and Delhi on a daily basis, Shravan decided to arrange for an accommodation in Delhi for Siddharth.

Siddharth was part of the victorious ACC U19 Indian squad. He will be travelling to the Caribbean to take part in the ICC U19 World Cup starting from January 14.