The first thing that struck me when I went to Jammu and Kashmir as mentor-cum-player in 2018 was the desire to excel in the younger bunch of players. They were hungry for more opportunities. They wanted someone to guide them. I was lucky to play a part in that journey.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!I actually compare their mentality with that of up-and-coming Mumbai cricketers. If you are coming from Jogeshwari or Andheri, you have to go to the town, taking a local train with a kit bag. You take two hours to reach the ground. You have to make sure you have full concentration when you get your chance. That’s the mindset Mumbai Cricket has. The same spirit drives J&K.There was one area that needed to be fixed immediately. When I actually went for the first selection meeting, there were two sections — Jammu and Kashmir. We made sure only talented players got to play. It didn’t matter if we created a whole team from Jammu or from Kashmir.There were two selectors from Jammu who were only talking about Jammu boys. And two selectors from Kashmir were only talking about Kashmiri boys. Talent can come from any district, any state as long as it’s your state. I tore that sheet of the first selection meeting because people were not open minded.Getting the right infrastructure was a big thing. The guys had to be taken to turf pitches from matting pitches. Taking a roller and all the facilities to the districts was a long haul with that kind of infrastructure. The players’ hunger helped them come up.There was an effort to make sure the cricket reached all the districts. We made sure in those two years, 50-60,000 cricketers played cricket. We started league cricket all around the state. There were 24 districts involved which included Leh and Ladakh as well.Fast bowlers like Rasikh Salam and Umran Malik came in. Aquib Nabi was part of junior cricket at that time as well. It was important for us to get him to the top of the tree in first-class cricket as well. So creating eight or 10 guys in terms of a fast bowling pool was very important.A former allrounder, Irfan Pathan played 29 Tests, 120 ODIs and 24 T20Is for India and was a player-cum mentor for Jammu and Kashmir from 2018 to 2020.(As told to Arani Basu)
