Captain, my captain

Polly Umrigar was my first cricketing hero, and that had little to do with the fact that he too was a Parsi like me. I remember in club cricket he was often called upon to play in the big matches, and he always delivered the goods. I liked that, and it was one of the reasons why I looked up to him.

Once, during one of those club games, I was sitting in the tent watching Polly bat. I knew he would want a drink of water sometime during his innings, and I wanted to be sure to be the one to deliver it.

The break came. I ran like hell so nobody would beat me to it, washed the glass properly, filled it with cold water and ran up to Polly out in the field. He placed a hand on my head and said, "Thanks, son." Little did we realise that we would one day share the same dressing room in Test cricket.

When I got the opportunity to play alongside him, my admiration only grew. He was always very humble - that was a good lesson to me. He was also an excellent captain - certainly the best I played under - and I learned a lot from him. He would be the captain of my dream Test XI.