A group of visually impaired children from the Institute of the Blind, Chandigarh, today got a rare opportunity to play cricket and mingle with their favourite stars from the IPL team Kings XI Punjab, here.
Despite inclement weather, the KXIP players played cricket with a group of ten children who had come down from the Institute to meet their favourite cricketing stars from the Punjab outfit.
The children, most of whom are partially blind while two are completely blind, played along side KXIP skipper George Bailey, Glenn Maxwell, Rishi Dhawan, Manan Vohra and other players.
"It makes us feel very fortunate to be able to share time with them, it's great to see them enjoying the game of cricket," Bailey told PTI here when asked how it feels to play with the visually impaired children.
He also said, "it is just lovely to see joys on their faces and be able to meet players like Glenn Maxwell and just be able to see the skill and ability in playing the game."
The Institute's Chairman, Major General Rajendra Nath (retd) said the idea of having the children meet and play with top cricketing stars was just to give them an opportunity to feel that they too can do things which other people can.
"They played with the audible ball which is specially used for the visually impaired. My heart filled with joy to see these children laugh and have fun," 89-year-old Gen Nath said.
Rehan (18), Sukhwinder (18), Abhishek (16), Sadanand (18) and other children mingled with the cricketers, who also signed photographs with them and clicked pictures.
"My favourite stars are Glenn Maxwell, George Bailey, Mitchell Johnson and Ab de Villiers," Sadanand said.
