It was tough for Nitish Rana and Mandeep Singh to come out and bat for their respective teams in the 2020 Indian Premier League (IPL). The duo showed a lot of guts in a time when quite a few people would’ve gone into trauma and depression and would have taken a few days, if not weeks, or months to recover.
Rana had lost his father-in-law Surinder Marwah and part from the personal tragedy, he turned up for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their match against the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. On the other hand, Mandeep lost his beloved father, Hardev Singh, who was suffering from a prolonged illness.
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Mandeep came ou to bat for the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) in the game against the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and interestingly, both players opened the batting for their respective teams and ended up on the winning side. Meanwhile, legendary Indian cricketer, Sachin Tendulkar empathized with Rana and Mandeep, who both showed a lot of courage.
Sachin could understand the pains of playing after losing a loved one. During the 1999 World Cup, he decided to bat against Kenya despite losing his father. He then also played a flamboyant knock of 140 runs. In fact, whenever he scored a century, the holder of 100 international centuries used to look at the heavens, remembering his father.
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He took to Twitter and wrote, “Loss of a loved one hurts, but what’s more heartbreaking is when one doesn’t get to say a final goodbye. Praying for @mandeeps12, @NitishRana_27 and their families to heal from this tragedy. Hats off for turning up today. Well played.”
Loss of a loved one hurts, but what’s more heartbreaking is when one doesn’t get to say a final goodbye. Praying for @mandeeps12, @NitishRana_27 and their families to heal from this tragedy. Hats off for turning up today. Well played.
— Sachin Tendulkar (@sachin_rt) October 24, 2020
On Saturday, though Mandeep failed to do much for the team, Rana put his best foot forward. The latter entered into the form slump after his fifty against the Delhi Capitals (DC) in Sharjah. But then, against SRH, the southpaw opened the was sent to open the batting where he scored 81 runs off 53 balls with 13 fours and a six. He also put up a 115-run stand with Sunil Narine, who smashed a 32-ball 64.
