"I also want to become a finisher like Dhoni"Mukul Choudhary opened his struggle filled journey

Kolkata: Mukul Chaudhary, who led Lucknow Super Giants to a thrilling win against Kolkata Knight Riders, considers former Indian captain MS Dhoni as his idol. Speaking to JioHotstar, Mukul Choudhary opened up about his admiration for MS Dhoni.

He said, “I always idolize MS Dhoni because I am also a finisher. I always take inspiration from him. His ‘helicopter shot’, which is very famous, is my favourite. Everyone remembers the way he captained India in the 2011 World Cup. I also want to be like him, finish matches and help my team win.”

On the story of his father’s sacrifice and his journey to play cricket, he said, “It was my father’s dream to play cricket at a big level. We come from a very poor family and he wanted a member of the family to play cricket. Nowadays, there is a lot of money and fame in cricket. Cricket is his favorite game, but the financial condition of our family was not such that he could play cricket professionally himself.

Even before marriage, he had decided that when he had a son, he would definitely introduce him to cricket. When I was young, the financial condition of our family was not strong and it was not possible for them to enroll me in any cricket academy. At that time, he was teaching in a college and was also preparing for RAS; Then he understood that either he could prepare for Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) or he could make me play cricket professionally.

So, he left his RAS preparation, did some property work, earned some money, and when I turned 12, he got me admitted to the SBS Cricket Academy in Sikar city for the first time.”

Talking about the initial difficulties in finding a cricket academy, Mukul said, “The challenge was that I didn’t know anything about cricket before I started playing at the professional level. There was no one in my family associated with cricket. There were no cricketers from our area either. I didn’t know anything about the game. I remember, in 2015, it was my birthday and my dad and I set out early in the morning in search of an academy. There were three districts nearby – Churu, Sikar. At that time, we saw the SBS Academy there and decided to take admission in it and the people running it were very fond of cricket.