Six days a week, five hours a day comes to 30 hours a week. That is how much Aadi, still two months short of his 10th birthday, will practice from Monday. We, Aadi, his mom Anjali and I never imagined this scenario when Aadi switched ambitions, from wanting to be a cricketer to wanting to become a Table Tennis player.
"Table Tennis should be a breeze for Aadi," I thought a year ago when we made the decision to change the game. After all, every cricket coach, most cricket parents, sundry spectators, the groundsmen, fellow cricketers, rivals all have commented on his amazing ability with the bat. His lovely stance, his follow through, his technique. Most of all his hand eye coordination, developed almost from the time he could walk through countless games of bat and ball. Games that began with a small plastic bat and a big plastic ball. That evolved to a big cricket bat and a leather ball, gloves, helmet, pads, even a ball guard by the time Aadi turned five.
Cricket coaching used to be a weekend affair. Two hours on Friday, and a couple on Saturday. Sunday's would be reserved for matches or an hour or two of lazy practice in the housing society. Fitness was a bit of stretching and warming up before the games. Training lasted for about seven months, as five were monsoon months in Mumbai and Pune and so no cricket.
It was actually the monsoon that was responsible for the switch. His last cricket coach, an ex-India cricketer recommended Aadi take up Table Tennis to further improve his hand-eye coordination. He told us how all great batsmen, including the greatest of them all Sachin Tendulkar, used the sport to stay sharp and keep fit during the inactive months. Easy enough for father and son as the housing society had a nice big hall with two Table Tennis tables. So we hit the tables religiously everyday for an hour or play.
Like everything to do with a bat and ball, the beginning came easy for Aadi. He was a bonafide recreational paddler within a couple of weeks of first picking up the bat. A month later and the "serious" players in the society would seek him out to play with him. That recognition of challenging and beating players more than twice his age possibly induced a desire to take up this sport. We agreed. Anjali and I were happy he wanted to try a new sport. One with an Olympic tag. One not tainted with big money and big politics.
So, almost a year to the day, we switched coaching from cricket to Table Tennis. The beginning was similar to cricket. Practice on weekends for a couple of hours a week. This went on for a month. Then two months. Then he started getting good at it. Beating kids
