The Indian Premier League (IPL) is the most popular T20 league in the world not only for its glamour, player duels, packed stadiums, and cricket riches. Also, for the fact that it offers a platform for everyone to level up, independently of his background The story of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) batsman Rinku Singh is one of the brightest examples of how IPL can lift someone from extreme poverty to stardom.
While the 2022 IPL season showed a glimpse of what Rinku can do with a bat, the 2023 season gave the world a true example of what he might be capable of. The 25-year-old comes from the humblest of backgrounds.
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But even the tough life Rinku and his parents have had. But to endure hasn’t seen the prodigy lose the big smile he always wears on his face. His father, Khanchand Singh, is a gas cylinder deliverer who transported cylinders on his bicycle. And went from house to house with the help of his eldest sons to deliver them.
He and his wife Vina still live in the shabby two-room apartment near a gas bottle depot. Even Rinku was offered to become a street sweeper along with his brother, who mopped houses for a living. But the man always believed he had cricket potential and saw the game as his only escape from the clutches of poverty. “When I was just starting and hadn’t played cricket, they asked me to work for my brother. I got a job sweeping and mopping at a training center. I turned it down because I didn’t like the job,” Rinku said in a video shared by KKR. “I told everyone I was going to play cricket and I stayed. I wasn’t very qualified either, but I always believed cricket would help me. I had no choice, so I turned my full attention to cricket. I’ve worked very hard and all of that effort is now paying off.”
Following KKR’s historic victory over defending champions Gujarat Titans on Sunday, he said that despite the odds, he hadn’t lost faith in scoring 28 runs in the last 5 balls. The situation on the pitch was a little different from his life, where his chances of becoming a professional cricketer were slim. But just like the game against Gujarat, the ever-smiling Rinku has beaten all odds and is on his way to achieving much more than he has already achieved.
