My earliest childhood memories are that of playing cricket on the dusty roads and narrow lanes of Rae Bareli, where I was born. I was a naughty kid and would be out in the sun all day playing pranks with my friends. In such a small town, I didn’t have scope to do much else. But all my friends were very passionate about cricket and we would play the game almost all the time. And break windows, of course. I was a decent player and loved to bowl fast.

Ours is a family of five comprising my parents and my two younger sisters. I am close to my siblings. But since I have been away from home playing cricket from a very young age, I rarely get to see them. So every time I go home, it’s a special occasion for me. But I don’t regret it, since it helped me to pursue my passion which is cricket.

Football was a favourite pastime too, but since I was better at cricket, I chose to focus on it. I still remember the first time I saw a cricket match at the local Rae Bareli stadium. The players in whites, the batsmen, the bowlers ? the whole atmosphere was electrifying. I was thrilled. After watching that match there was no doubt left in my mind that I wanted to be a cricketer.

But it was difficult in a small town like Rae Bareli. There was no coaching facility and hardly any matches were played. So, I had to shift to Lucknow which has a wonderful sports hostel with coaching and training facilities for all sporting disciplines, including cricket. It was a whole new world for me. There were 250 of us and life was pretty regimented. We had to get up early, exercise, practise, go to school, come back and train a little more. By the end of the day, we would all be tired. I wasn’t a bad student, but after I started playing seriously, the focus obviously shifted.

From the Lucknow sports hostel, I was selected to join the MRF Pace Academy in Chennai. Ever since, there has been no looking back. I often miss my hometown but then, one has to keep moving on in life.