India, Hull, Medicine, Cricket and Charity - An Anglo - Indian Affair

In Hull’s year as City of Culture, the 70^th Anniversary of Independence in India, and England hosting the ICC Champions Trophy, Cricket World met up with the Pathak family, in Hull, earlier in the summer to hear their fascinating story. Hull, a relative cricketing backwater has hosted several of India’s finest cricketers over the last 30 years.

This unique series of videos chronologically describes an Anglo-Indian relationship celebrating a family’s passion for cricket, medicine and helping people over an amazing 40 year period.

Ashok Pathak and his son Samir both studied medicine to become surgeons and both played cricket to a high level when they were younger. Ashok in India and his son Samir in England.

The videos describe Ashok’s early years in India as a budding cricketer (Ranji Trophy for Bihar 1972-74) and then, settling in Hull, in the North East of England, in the 1970s, as a Junior Doctor, talking about his passion for cricket and medicine and what it was has been like living and working in the NHS, in Britain, for over 40 years.

He talks about the unique Anglo Indian relationship created through cricket and medicine and about the enormous number of doctors and nurses that he has assisted in training in India and those that have come over to Britain, to work and train in the NHS.

Ashok then speaks about how he assisted with highlighting the disaster of the Kosi River Floods in 2010 in India (and how lucky we are in Britain to have such great Emergency Services!) and finally he ecalls what an honour it was to be awarded an MBE for services to Medicine, in both India and Britain, and for his charitable work.

As an aside, during the interview with Ashok, I sensed that, with a twinkle in his eye, he has always wondered ‘what might have been’ in his cricket career had he not gone into medicine?

Then we talked with his son Samir who speaks fondly about growing up in Hull and following his father into medicine, in England, and how he is now developing and continuing a relationship with cricket and medicine both in the UK and in India. Samir talks briefly regarding his own cricketing career in his younger years and elaborates on the Cricket Charity he has established to benefit underprivileged cricketers- Cricket Beyond Boundaries

Samir also spoke of the role Cricket can play in raising awareness around several health issues and the wider impact sport can have on society. He then discusses future plans of utilising cricket to raise health profiles in certain sectors.

Cricket Beyond Boundaries

Since its formation in 2011, Cricket Beyond Boundaries (CBB) has now brought 20 underprivileged cricketers over to the UK from India to spend time in leading schools and develop their cricket and life skills.

These talented young cricketers have come from different areas of India and as the programme grows,our or five more boys are heading over this summer with more schools becoming involved.

The initiatives' long-term goals are to extend help to poor young cricketers in the UK and enable them to complete their education, be able to support female cricketers and also cricketers with disabilities. They also want to expand their work to include all cricket playing nations

CBB Fundraisers:

• CBB have previously hosted high-profile charity events and fund-raisers including:
  
  
• A match against Lashings in 2013 at Hymers College in Hull with Sunil Gavaskar in attendance
  
  
• A dinner at the House of Lords in July 2014 attended by Sachin Tendulkar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Farokh Engineer, the Indian High Commissioner to the UK and patron Lord Bhikhu Parekh
  
  
• A dinner at Cinnamon Kitchen in 2015, attended by Dilip Vengsarkar, Farokh Engineer, Gordon Greenidge, and Monty Panesar.

CBB work closely with:

a)    Ashwin's GENNEXT Academy (Chennai)

b)    Vengsarkar's Cricket Academy in Mumbai/Pune

c)    Chembur Children's Home, where Kukreja coaches orphan cricketers in his spare time.

Cricketers who have benefitted:

2012: Prithvi Shaw, Sarfaraz Khan (both Mumbai), Nitin Tanwar (Delhi), Akshay Bharambhatt (Baroda)
2013: Khizar Dafedar (Mumbai), Shivam Chauhan, Vikas Dixit (both Delhi), Paranjul Puri (Madhya Pradesh)
2014: Prithvi Shaw (Mumbai), Harshvardhan Patil (Pune), Ramakrishnan Natarajan (Chennai), Vikas Dexit (Delhi)
2015: Rupesh Barode, Hashir Dafedar (both Mumbai), Divya Prakesh (Chennai)
2016: Nitish Joyal (Chennai), Rupesh Barode, Pradeep Das (both Mumbai), Saurabh Nawale (Pune)
2017: Rupeh Barode, Prajwal Pansare (both Mumbai), Aman Mulla (Pune), AK Rasheed (Hyderabad), Vikram Lakshminarasimhan (Chennai)

Ashok Pathak MBE - Early Years

• Birth in Bihar India
• School Days at Hazaribagh St Xaviers with Australian Fathers who gave initial exposure to cricket
• Medical School
• Cricket
• Patna University Captain, East Zone Universities-
• Bihar Ranji Trophy Squad
• Move to UK in 1977
• Training
• Orthopaedic Surgery
• Remnants CC Team in 1980s in Hull
• Early cricketers who came to Hull- Dilip Vengsarkar (1990), WV Raman (1992), Paras Mhambrey, Venkat Ramana, D Vasu, Amit Dani, Nishit Shetty
• Later years saw IPL stars Shivil Kaushik and Sarfaraz Khan
• Medicine and India-UK – charitable works
• Trips to India to train
• Recruitment of doctors to work here
• How many numbers supported over the years
• BBC documentary following Kosi River Floods in 2010
• MBE in 2011 for service to medicine

India, Hull, Medicine and Cricket – An Anglo- Indian Family Affair

Samir Pathak

• Hull City of Culture
• Samir sets the scene between Hull and the cricketers that have come through this City
• Early years
• Born in Hull 1981, Schooled in Hull at Hymers College
•  Now in final years of training as a Liver and Pancreatic Surgeon
• Cricket- Liverpool University Captain whilst studying Medicine, England Universities 2004, Current MCC playing member.
• Cricketers facilitated bringing to Hull, as a former Hull CC player; Sarfaraz Khan, Vikas Dixit, Shivil Kaushik
• Cricket Beyond Boundaries involved with currently 5 cricketers including 2 orphan cricketers visiting UK schools/clubs in 2017.
• Future – to have disadvantaged people/cricketers from all over the world coming to the UK to learn about life and cricket – partnerships with Ashwin Academy, Vengsarkar Academy and others

Video Information

• Ashok Pathak | Medicine | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Ashok Pathak | Early Years | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Ashok Pathak | The Kosi River Floods | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Ashok Pathak | MBE and the Future | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Samir Pathak | Early Years | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Samir Pathak | Following in Father's Footsteps | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Samir Pathak | Cricket Beyond Boundaries | An Anglo-India Affair
• Samir Pathak | Hull (City of Culture), Cricket and Medicine | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Samir Pathak | The Future | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Samir Pathak | CBB, Fundraising and Royal Interest | An Anglo-Indian Affair
• Samir Pathak | Cricket and Medicine | An Anglo-Indian Affair

Find out more: www.cricketbeyondboundaries.org.uk

Durham School 2017 – interviews with players and CBB youngsters