Going Beyond Cricket - The legacy of the man behind wheelchair cricket in India

After a major accident during his service in the Indian Air Force, Squadron Leader Abhai Pratap Singh, found himself at a unique juncture in his life where a disability caused by the mishap gave him the right push to take on the mission of empowering several people from the disabled community. 

While most wheelchair bound individuals gravitated towards sports such as basketball, Abhai presented the community with a sport closest to Indians and laid the foundations of Wheelchair Cricket India Association (W.C.I.A.). The W.C.I.A has grown to be the apex body in India which promotes the legacy of the unique sport that is wheelchair cricket and plays a crucial role in platforming wheelchair bound gifted sportsmen. 

Transcript

Speakers:

Akshay Kapur

Abhai Pratap Singh 

Akshay Kapur

Welcome to the Sony Pictures Networks Go Beyond Podcast where we go beyond the surface and uncover the extraordinary. I'm your host Akshay Kapur. Today we have a man who has added a new dimension to India's most beloved sport a former fighter plane pilot who went to become a Squadron Leader in the Indian Air Force. He was forced into an unfortunate early retirement when a road accident led to him damaging his spinal cord yet, although the accident had confined him to a wheelchair for life his spirits and will power could not be grounded. In language true to his sport, he pulled a googly on his faith by founding a differently abled cricket association which has since become the epicenter of a movement to ensure greater equality and opportunities to the differently abled. It is a pleasure to welcome the Founder and CEO of the Wheelchair Cricket India Association - the W.C.I.A, Joint Secretary for the differently abled cricket council of India and the mentor of the Indian wheelchair cricket team - Abhai Pratap Singh. Abhai, Welcome to the Go-Beyond Podcast, how are you feeling today?

Abhai

Good evening, Akshay and thank you so much for nice intro.

Akshay Kapur

It's my pleasure I think it, stands true to what you stand for, what the W.C.I.A stands for. At the onset of our conversation Abhai, I would like to take the chance to set the tone for today's talk by asking you in your opinion. What does the term differently abled mean to you?

Abhai

See Akshay, differently abled is just a term which is given by the society to call a certain set of people. But as per me, everybody is differently abled, even you are differently abled. Even if I was standing and walking, we both would have different set of qualities, different set of abilities. So, everybody, every individual is differently abled. So, this term which is most commonly used to refer to persons with disability is, otherwise true for everybody. So, but nevertheless right now it is most commonly used, so we'll also continue using that.

Akshay Kapur

Right? When you talk about having founded the Wheelchair Cricket India Association, can you tell us why you felt it was important for people in wheelchairs, people with disabilities to stay physically active. What kind of positive impact does it lead to both mentally and physically for them?

Abhai

See, it's not only for people on wheelchair who, have to remain physically fit. It's for everybody but definitely for differently abled people it is more important because with physical disability there are a lot of challenges.

Akshay Kapur

Could you highlight some of them?

Abhai

Yeah, sitting on a wheelchair there are very limited exercises, very limited opportunities for sports which are available to me. So, cricket is something which happened by chance to me because I had not played too much of cricket earlier. So, when I entered the ground first time I realized that this is the only game which persons who are sitting on wheelchair can play in such a large open ground. Okay and not only that, this is the only game with 11 players in one team. So many people who are differently abled, they can come together and play. 

Thirdly, it can be played for you know large number of hours. a game of cricket is 4 to 5 hours okay so that gives ample amount of time for the players to interact among themselves. Interacting among themselves gives them, knowledge experiences which they share, which they have faced, the problems how they've you know, tackled those problems. And above all, the game of cricket is the most loved sport in India. 

Akshay Kapur

Absolutely yeah.

Abhai

So, it is really easy to get people out of their homes for cricket. You know for any other activity, for any other game people are not ready to move out of their homes. They were packed in their house. But for cricket players you know they came from almost five hundred six hundred kilometers without any help. There's a lot of people who came out of their house first time. So, this was not possible before through any other sport or any other activity. Cricket has that power atleast in India and before I move ahead I'll like to mention here Wheelchair basketball. Wheelchair basketball was a sport which brought movement towards rights of persons with disability in United States of America, which is definitely one of the pioneer countries towards giving equal rights to persons with disability. So Wheelchair basketball became the road towards equal rights for disabled in United States of America. So, after you know going through all this reading I knew, there has to be some sport and that cricket gave me that opportunity. 

Akshay Kapur

Right? And I think you've touched upon something very interesting here and before we talk to you more about the WCIA. I want to ask you mentioned a platform for accessibility and you talked about wheelchair basketball in the USA.

Abhai

Um, yeah.

Akshay Kapur

Creating a platform for equal opportunity. Can you tell us more detail about what you mean when you talk about the role of a sport in creating these lifestyle things?

Abhai

See what happens in normal day to day life you'll see. Persons with disability are seen through the lens of sympathy. Okay, this person is something less than us. So, we should do something for them, that is sympathy, whereas the approach should have been of empathy this is because people have not seen persons with disability doing you know, great things. We don't see them too often in our workplace. We don't see them in sports field. We don't see them in transports you know sitting next to us or traveling with us so that is a problem. I'll not say it's apathy, its actually ignorance induced apathy. People are not aware how to deal with people with disability. They don't know how to talk to them. They don't know how to behave with them so that ignorance leads to that apathy. 

Akshay Kapur

Okay.

Abhai

Okay, so because I don't know how to talk to them, I turn my head and most importantly I'm not disabled, because of my disability. I'm disabled because of the barriers in my life. The roads are not accessible, I don't have you know clear path. 

If I want to go to A to B place, I don't have accessible transports. So, if you make the environment accessible, I am no less than you. I can go to my workplace, go to the places I want to visit, I can go to a pub, I can go to a restaurant anywhere. You tell me I can go provided that road, that route, that place is accessible for me so that is only possible when people with disabilities are seen more often by everybody else. 

Akshay Kapur

Right. I think that makes sense when you talked about the public amenities also providing you access to the same opportunities in western nations. You talked about the USA, but something as simple as public buses.

Abhai

Um, yeah, yeah.

Akshay Kapur

They have ramps for people on wheelchairs to be able to get onto the bus. There are designated spaces on the bus for people of wheelchair or people of disability and such like that, right.

Abhai

Yeah, it’s not only that making a place accessible. People are trained to deal with persons with disability that is most important thing. It's not always that you need a ramp, I'm okay

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

And there are 3-4 stairs people lift me up, but those people should be aware how to do this thing. Okay, there people are not aware, that is a problem. 

Akshay

This is an interesting topic. I think we're going to touch upon it more, further in the conversation. But I wanted to take this chance here to ask you about how you first encountered Wheelchair Cricket?  Now we are coming back out of the topic of accessibility for a moment and get a sense of what are the circumstances that led to you founding the WCIA?

Abhai

See what happened I was inclined towards the sports. I knew that I wanted some sport to be in my life to keep myself fit, but there's not too much of peer group. I were not finding too many people in day-to-day life.

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

So only thing which I had was running around early morning. I used to go for runs then do some exercise and that was all. But I wanted to basically start a peer-to-peer rehabilitation kind of thing where some people who have done this and there are some other people who have just started into this life and both of them are living together learning through each other with seeing people.

Akshay Kapur

Yeah.

Abhai

So, I wanted to do something of that kind, but it was not happening because it requires a lot of money. So, I was waiting for that right time when I had that kind of money there was a session of Hydrotherapy so in that session I met a guy he was also on wheelchair. 

He invited me for a game of Cricket on Wheels So initially, I was also little confused how somebody can play cricket sitting on a wheelchair, so I resisted this thought, and I kept avoiding him, but he kept persisting.

So, after three four misses I decided to go and as I entered, for the first time I had come into a ground after coming on to wheelchair. So that feeling of an open ground, that independence, that freedom that gave me a hit and after that I realized that this game has a path. 

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

So, I was not inclined to form a WCIA Or Wheelchair Cricket Association or make a team. I was only wanting to start a rehab center kind of thing and instead of making that rehab center, I chose cricket. We’ll play some game of cricket wherein people like me who have done those things who are okay with it who are good with it they are there and there are other people who just joined. They come, we play a game of cricket and during that game of cricket we interact with each other we share our problems. We share our solutions and that's what all I wanted to do. But the kind of support I got within a span of six months I was in connection with almost 300 people all over India, who were on wheelchair, and they wanted to play cricket. So with that number I had no option but to form a proper association. Give it a platform. So that we can do some R&D make the game more inclusive make the game more easy for people sitting on wheelchair and that is all how it happened. It was just by a fluke, but I must say that whatever happened, it happened for good.

Akshay Kapur

That's fantastic Abhai and you know I have to say you said something which I'm going to pick up. You said when you first heard of this, and you were first invited to play wheelchair cricket you faced some internal resistance. Did you find that in other players that you've tried to get involved in the sport? Initially did you experience similar resistance from them and how did you go about encouraging them?

Abhai

No, no, not with all of them most of the people who connected with us were those who wanted to play cricket anyhow. But yes, there was some good sportsmen who were playing other sports and they were not doing really well there. So, when we tried to get them into cricket. we had to face some resistance.

And now the game was already better. What I had seen was different. What they were seeing was definitely real cricket, because in wheelchair cricket what we play it's almost as same as normal cricket. Well, I will not say normal cricket but the mainstream cricket. So, it's as same as that.

Just we've done two things, we've reduced the boundary size because you know with the 11-players sitting on wheelchair covering such a large ground which is normally sixty meters to eighty meters is not easy. So, for that we have reduced the boundary size and we've reduced the pitch size. Because normal cricket is twenty-two yards and we made it to eighteen yards because sitting on wheelchair where you get five feet of maximum height from where you're throwing a ball, it's not easy to make good twenty-two yards. So, for that we have reduced it to eighteen yards.

Otherwise rest everything is same. We use the same ball same bat. We pad up like others we are doing everything like the mainstream cricket.

Akshay Kapur

Right? I think you've answered the question I was going to follow up with which is about giving us a visualization of the actual field and the game is the overall game format also similar when we talk about the number of overs.

Abhai

Yeah, definitely. It is similar right now we are mostly playing 20 overs game which is called T-20 and we do it in similar manner. Just again, we have given some extra minutes like a normal cricket it's close to 150 minutes for a game. We give 10 minutes extra for the game. Otherwise rest everything is same. If you see a game of Wheelchair Cricket, we have players sitting on wheelchair who hit sixes as long as seventy meters okay. So, seventy meters is not easy for even somebody able bodied who is standing on his feet.

Akshay Kapur

Wow!

Abhai

And sitting on a wheelchair. You don't have any footwork you cannot move up in the pitch to hit sixes. It's really not easy, but they hit and there are a lot of players today doing that. 

Akshay Kapur

Right? Which, which is fantastic and it's lovely to hear I'm just curious. about one thing though because you mentioned earlier that you realized the amount of people who wanted to get involved in wheelchair cricket on the nationwide scale and so you realized you had to turn this into an association. What were some of the challenges you faced while structuring the association and how did you overcome those challenges?

Abhai

See first challenge was parents letting their kids coming out and play cricket with a leather ball then challenge was funding.

And it required a lot of funding because when you are organizing a game and players have to come out of their home and stay in a different city, it requires accessible accommodation which is not available everywhere, you need at least 3-star hotel for them to accommodate persons with disability especially wheelchair users so that required a lot of funding and third was infra.

Even today we face these things at some places but it's definitely very less. The ground owners refused to give us the ground that our pitch will be damaged by wheelchairs. You know in fact, in normal cricket there you are using spikes.

Okay, so our wheels don’t damage the pitch that much as those spikes and every time the pitches rolled, everybody knew this but still they refused us on this these grounds. So, this was the biggest challenge which we had to face, rest all the things were okay, we could manage here and there but without the ground where to go? We have to play in a proper ground. So, this was a major challenge, but today I’m happy to tell that normally we don't get these kinds of resistances. But still it happens. 

Akshay Kapur

Right? You mentioned parents and kids earlier. What is the age range for your players just out of curiosity?

Abhai

Age range right now is approximately from 18-years to almost 50-years okay so yeah, there a lot of our players are parents, a lot of our players are kids.

Akshay Kapur

Um, oh wow.

Abhai

Whose parents don't allow. Earlier when we started, generally the people who had some financial backing, were established, they only came out. 

Akshay Kapur

Okay.

Abhai

So that's how it starts, the people who are capable they show the way to the community. So even today we are getting players especially people with forces background, people like me who've come out of forces after accident or bullet a injury.

35 to 40 years of age and they are joining us maybe at 42 - 43 so they are equally good as a 18 year old sitting in a wheelchair right now, but definitely as the game will improve this thing will change. The older guys will not hit the opportunity in front of the younger ones.

Akshay Kapur

Fair enough. But you were talking about you know, getting players who showed enthusiasm and it was interesting to see the amount of players who, actually wanted to come out and join the association. We look at wheelchair cricket now being recognized by the BCCI, and you have close to 1500 players pan India who are playing this sport. I think you alluded to this a little earlier on in the conversation when you talked about the travel.

Abhai

Yeah.

Akshay Kapur

And you know finding accommodations. But what are some of the ways in which you've seen or you've got feedback from your players in the ways in which wheelchair cricket has actually had a positive impact or changed their lives for the better.

Abhai

See most important is interpersonal skills. Okay, there are a lot of players who had not moved out of their cities, moved out of their villages, they were not interacting much with the other people. Through cricket they've learned to travel alone and not dependent on anybody. Second thing is they are all able to interact with people from other states also with lot of language barriers and all those things.

Akshay Kapur

Right

Abhai

Still, they've learned that that there's something called interpreter, this very basic things. Okay. So, through these they've understood one thing that every problem has a solution, You have to look around you. You have to talk to people you have to find that solution. So, if you find that solution. There is no limitation. Otherwise, every individual has a limitation.

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

You must be having some limitations, somebody is scared of heights, somebody is scared of going on road, somebody is scared of travelling by air. There are a lot of limitations every individual has. But if you found solution to that limitation, you'll be able to do well in your life. So that is the most important thing which these players have learned. And I must tell you that a lot of players who were degree holders, but they were not getting employment. They got employed after 1 or 2 years of wheelchair cricket when they learned these skills through cricket.  

They have learned lot of interpersonal skills lot of soft skills. They've learned how to communicate with other people. They've learned to you know, travel independently and most important thing they've learned that every problem has a solution. 

Akshay Kapur

I think that's fantastic, and it sets up the tone of our conversation. We're talking about learning these skills, learning to overcome challenges talking about solutions to problems. Abhai speaking more personally here.

Abhai

Yeah.

Akshay Kapur

When you were first faced with learning to live life on a wheelchair. What are some of the challenges that you had to find your own solutions to? But now the WICA is creating an environment that seeks to help others overcome those challenges in in the same situation.

Abhai

See the challenges which I face may not be true for everybody because first challenge is to fight with oneself and to not accept that disability as a limitation. 

So most important challenge was attitudinal deficiency, I'll say with the other people. The people at workplace, people at malls, in airlines while traveling. I made this point that I'll not try and take help from everybody or anybody, so I started from day one I traveled alone and I could manage, but definitely with difficulties. People will give me those stares. Why did you come out? You should be at home. You should carry somebody with you. Why are you traveling alone? 

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

But with time, things have changed today. Today, it's very easy to travel atleast by airlines. In my days when I started even airlines were not accessible, people they refused to carry you. They linked it to medical condition that you have a problem something happens in air who’ll take care of you. Well, I had to tell them my heart is okay I don't have hypertension I'm not diabetic, I don't have any such issue. But still they refused that was a major challenge and other because I refused to stay at home. from day one I knew if I have to do business, I will have to travel alone, I'll have to go around so it's okay, that I faced those things. I traveled by train also alone, I've traveled by air also alone, people have lifted me up and put into bus, in train. 

But it's how things should be taken and that's how I was able to cope up with these things. I realized this is something which I can't avoid. I'll not be able to get into a bus without help of people around me, so I went to a bus stop I looked around, somebody came to help me. So it's both ways my attitude also changed. Earlier I was very reluctant of asking help now I'm not reluctant. I know that I need help I’ll ask for help. Similarly, the society is also changing. There is a law which has come in place in India so because of that lot of things have changed, but definitely this is what was difficult for me.

Akshay Kapur

Right, you know if we're talking about the challenges that you faced I think one of the themes that definitely ties your story together is the theme of resilience and.

Abhai

Yeah.

Akshay Kapur

I wanted to ask you do you feel like this is a trait you've inherently possessed or is it something that you've developed overtime and what enabled you to do it? To be resilient.

Abhai

See, resilience is something generally we develop over the time. Okay, so sometimes for people like me I had this thing earlier because of my forces background. Maybe.

And I've seen lot of people who've developed this thing after getting into this environment in this condition of disability. Okay, so see resilience is like bouncing back. The day you understand that this condition is permanent you have to live with it. The day a person understands that this is a permanent condition, and you have to live with it start looking for solutions.

How to live with that condition and things happen. That's what happened with me I was able to do it very quickly people take time I've seen people coming out of this condition this state of you know depression.

Akshay Kapur

Okay, is there any mental work that one can do and you talk about the acceptance factor that you used or any anything that you know can help others?

Abhai

Most important things which basically can help people is a support of society. The support of closed ones your family members, your wife, your husband your kids or your parents. If these people don't let you feel that you’re disabled, things happen quickly 

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

And if these people they give up then it becomes a real problem.And in my case, I had this kind of friendly people around me who never let me feel that I'm disabled and that helped me to get into this thing faster. Secondly for individual you just accept this thing that this condition is going to be permanent, and everybody has limitations.

Everybody every single soul on this earth has some or the other limitation and that limitation doesn't mean rest everything has become dysfunctional. Okay, if I'm not able to walk that doesn't mean my arms are not okay. My brain is still working. There are lot of things which doesn't require your legs. There is one limitation but there are a lot of possibilities with you.

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

Which you have to start exploring now. So, explore the things which are there with you and leave the thing which is left behind. 

Akshay Kapur

Right? I think that's fantastic, and it sets up the tone for my next and final question. Abhay I think you've created something truly revolutionary in a sense with the WCIA

Abhai

yeah

Akshay Kapur

Looking into the future as the organization continues to grow and gains more recognition. What is the mission that you would like to achieve through the Wheelchair Cricket India Association?

Abhai

If you go by the name Wheelchair Cricket India definitely there is one thing which is, I’d like to see cricket as, one of the major sports for wheelchair users and I know it will become one day.

But most importantly, my aim was to make this thing normal make persons with disability not something extraordinary or something which is unusual. It becomes a normal thing that we are able to see them on roads, in parks, in theaters every day. We should see 1 or 2 wheelchair users coming to theater and you should see wheelchair users every other day in restaurant sitting next to you. So I want to make this thing normal that wheelchair users, persons with vision disability, deaf and mute people and any kind of disability, they become normal. I should not be made an inspiration just because I'm able to live sitting in a wheelchair, I should be called an inspiration only when I've done something good, or I've done something extraordinarily well.

Akshay Kapur

Right.

Abhai

And it becomes normal that persons with disability get equal opportunities to live their life, to get employed, to raise their families and to die peacefully with the contented mind that I've done what I was supposed to be doing in this world.

Akshay Kapur

Right. Thank you. I think that's a fantastic note to end our conversation on. Abhay, thank you so much for taking the time to join us here on the Go-Beyond Podcast. It's been a lovely conversation and I'm sure our listeners will really enjoy your story.

Abhai

Thank you so much Akshay for having me here. 

 ~ Ends ~