G Force Tour diary: Tale of eight-year-old Ashbel from Oman who sleeps with his pads on

By K.R. Nayar

We’ve heard of many who eat, drink and sleep cricket. But when a eight-year-old boy does this without anyone telling him, it is surely news worthy. There is so much passion for cricket in eight- year-old Ashbel Burboz that his father Wilson Burboz decided to enrol his son for the G Force Cricket Academy camp in Dehradun although they are based in Oman.

 

Eight-year-old Ashbel Burboz is an example of one who eat, drink and sleep cricket 

The boy was like a squirrel moving all over the ground as if he had reached some heavenly place. He kept himself busy retrieving the ball hit by the batsmen at the nets without showing any signs of exhaustion. The drives he exhibited to the throws from coach Abhishek Saha seemed like they were out of a cricket coaching manual.  Speaking to the boy’s father Wilson Burboz convinced me that this boy literally eats, drinks, and sleeps cricket.

 

Ashbel with his father Wilson Burboz 

“He wants to keep batting all the time. As soon as I come from office, he is ready with his bat wanting me to do throw balls to him. Not satisfied with the session inside the house, he would ask me to come to the corridor and with the lift door behind him as stumps he would continue to bat,” noted the father.

 

Ashbel practices inside his home 

When he revealed what the boy does while sleeping, it confirmed that the boy’s passion for the game was beyond many others of the same age as him. “Recently I brought him a pair of pads. He didn’t like to remove it and slept with his pads on.” This remark convinced me that he had come to the right place to G Force whose slogan is “Play with Passion.”

 

Ashbel trains with lift as the stumps 

Wilson also recalled how as a four-year-old boy Ashbel had put on a batting grip all by himself. “I once got him a batting grip and went to work telling Ashbel that he would help him put it on after he returned from office. Ashbel, who has noticed me put on the batting grip by hitting on the top did it the same way and I was surprised that at that age he did it with perfection.”

 

Ashbel takes thrown downs from G Force coach Abhishek Saha in Dehradun 

Ashbels’ love for the game was nothing but an extension of his father’s devotion to the game as well. Wilson Burboz was a cricketer from Mumbai who is admired for his skills even now. “I played for Mumbai University. I represented the famous Podar College, playing alongside Rohan Gavaskar and many top Mumbai cricketers. I was coached by late V.S. Patil  and recommended by Vasoo Paranjpee to play for Khimjis.”  This was before cricket in Oman beckoned him.

 “I was invited to play for the Khimjis and then I stayed on in Oman. I have two children. My daughter is studying for Engineering and Ashbel is in Grade 2. All that I am doing is backing Ashbel’s love for the game. I don’t push him but only pray and hope he becomes a good cricketer and also grows up with good human values,” said Wilson, who had heard about G Force’s popular cricket camps that provides allround development of a cricketer.

 

Ashbel in joy at being in a cricket camp for the first time 

“One day I explained my son’s deep love for the game and wanted him to be in a camp which would and be satisfying for him to Nilesh Parmar (who represented Oman).  Parmar had played for Gujarat and Saurashtra Under-19 teams along with Gopal Jasapara and he told me that I should take Ashbel for one of G Force’s cricket tours. Soon coach Ravi Bariya from Mumbai, who is one of G Force’s coaches and with whom I had played during my college days informed me about the Dehradun tour. That is how we are here and I find it that this is the camp that my son should be in.”

Ashbel also expressed his deep love for the game. Until this tour, Wilson had been teaching the basics of the game. “Every day, I teach him how to bat. The hanging ball at home has no rest with Ashbel hitting it continuously and experimenting various strokes. My wife Greenal, who was a state level athlete in Mumbai, takes him for fitness training. This is followed by training at home but I wanted him to have a bigger exposure,” said Wilson who was also a fine off spinner and an agile fielder. 

 
For right-handed Ashbel, it has been a camp of many firsts in Dehradun. “It is his first tour, first camp, he received his first cap from Apurva Desai, (one of India’s finest coaches, and is now the batting coach at the National Cricket Academy) and played his first ever match too,” remarked Wilson, who feels that from the way Ashbel picked a cricket bat for the first time he felt he had some talent in him.

 

Wilson has more reasons to feel happy here: “I realized that Gopal is not just a cricket coach but teaches children the values of the life. I was surprised to see Gopal pick all the empty bottles and even help them in taking plates and continuously insisting on playing the game with joy and passion. This is the kind of exposure I am looking for Ashbel.”

 

Does Ashbel has an idol? “Sachin Tendulkar is his idol and he keeps watching Tendulkar’s century in England during his spare time,” said Wilson, and added: “I am not a demanding parent but a supportive one who is only backing my son’s deep love for cricket.”