India is a cricket-crazy nation. And the craze infected visually-impaired Lal Prasad Soren too when he was just a child.
Son of labourers, Soren played with a makeshift bat and balls at Baripada Blind School. The Santhali boy recalls using slabs of wood as bats and wastepaper balls. “The Odisha Association for the Blind would supply specially-made cricket equipment for the blind. But they would wear down very soon,” he smiles.
Despite the odds, his senior at school, Durga Hembram, recognised Soren’s prodigious talent.
In fact, so impressed was Hembram that when he shifted to Cuttack Blind School, he asked Soren to join him and play for his school. Only nine years old at that time, Soren ran away to Cuttack without informing his parents.
The Silver City helped him hone his skills greatly. At a cricket tournament at Maninda, where six blind schools took part, Soren’s team ended up as runners-up. He was the fastest and highest run scorer, at 38, in the finals.
He would frequently take the train from Baripada to Cuttack to attend practice. Broke at times, he would travel without a ticket. “Sometimes, TTEs would catch me,” remembers the blind cricketer. “But I would tell them why I was travelling, and they would be impressed with my passion for cricket and let me go,” he explains with a giggle.
The tribal boy then joined the team of Cuttack-based Maa Tarini Welfare Foundation and in every game, displayed what an accomplished batsman and bowler he was.
In 2011, the East Zone T-20 Tournament was organised at Nimpur Stadium in Cuttack. Soren blasted a quick 53, the second-highest individual score of the match, in the final. He was widely applauded and came to the notice of Coach Chandrasekhar Patnaik.
Patnaik says, “We selected 14 players, including Lallu, as we fondly call him, for a 10-day coaching camp at BJB College before a national-level tournament. Lallu was adept, both physically and psychologically and showed he is a quick learner.”
The little boy from Mayurbhanj has gone on to now become a permanent fixture in Odisha’s cricket team for the blind as a fiery all-rounder. He is also pursuing his Post-Graduation in History from the Ravenshaw University alongside his game.
Quiet off the field, this blind cricketer bats fast and furious and bowls with much speed and swing. “In 2016, he scored 78 against Jharkhand in the T-20 semi-final at Eden Gardens, which was the best performance by a player at the national level,” says his coach.
But his teammate Sukharam Majhi, who has played over a 100 matches with Soren, ranks his knock against Andhra Pradesh in the final as his best. “He scored 56 and I made 88, which turned out to be a winning combination for our team,” a proud Majhi tells The Indian Tribal.
