Dasgupta promises to fight it out for India place

He had been so busy playing club matches in the city, that Deep Dasgupta had no idea when the probables for the Zimbabwe tour would be selected. Moreover, he had never thought that he would find a place amongst an elite lot. It was a club official who informed him about the good news on Sunday evening. And since then the wicket-keeper from Bengal has been flooded with congratulations. "I had never really expected to find a place amongst the 26 cricketers. However, now that I have got the opportunity, I will fight it out" said Dasgupta. He knows that the competition at Bangalore will be fierce as there are two more wicket-keepers in the list announced on Sunday. But Dasgupta is not ready to think about them. "I only want to concentrate on myself. If I think too much about others, my performance will suffer."

The excitement of finding a place amongst the probables is restrained because his parents are in England at present. "My brother has just landed a lucrative job in England" said Deep. "So my parents have gone to visit. I called up my dad and mom on Sunday. They are really thrilled. Especially dad." It should be mentioned here that Dasgupta's comeback match against Orissa this year was quite successful. The pressure on him was tremendous. More so, because his dad was critically ill. However, he performed very well both in front of and behind the stumps.

Dasgupta learnt his cricket in Delhi for which he is indebted to NIS coach Suneeta Sharma. Even though, he was born in Kolkata, Deep spent 16 years in Delhi. During this period he used to visit the National Stadium to practise gymnastics. It was there that he managed to attract the attention of Ms Sharma. She noticed a boy who used to stand for hours to watch the cricketers practice. Finally she called him to the nets and gymnastics' loss was cricket's gain. "I am really thankful to her and to Dronacharya Gursharan Singh of Delhi for their immense contribution in developing my cricketing abilities" said Deep. In fact, Dasgupta had also represented Delhi in the Under-16 level Vijay Merchant Trophy.

He had a Ranji Trophy hundred on debut against Baroda in the 1998/99 season. Even then, his place was not certain in the Bengal side because of the presence of Saba Karim. This year also Dasgupta would have been on the sidelines but his chance arrived when Karim withdrew from the Bengal team because of fitness problems and he grabbed it with both hands. Dasgupta had the opportunity of playing alongside Saurav Ganguly when the latter played in the match against Orissa. "He was very pleased with the way I kept wickets. He was always encouraging" ended Deep.