Ear on the ball

Shekhar Naik hopes his Padma award will draw BCCI's attention to blind cricket

He’s a cricketer who has scored 32 centuries in a career that spans 13 years and 63 matches across all formats. Under his captaincy, India won the 2014 World Cup. Throughout his career, he has been a role model for hundreds of sportsmen and women. Which is why, when the government awarded Shekhar Naik the Padma Shri for his contributions to Indian cricket this Republic Day, India’s 50,000-odd blind cricketers raised a silent cheer to celebrate this long overdue acknowledgement. 

“Any sport is hard for someone who can’t see,” says Naik, as he describes the rules of the game. “But perhaps,