The Indian Express ·
Mumbai club cricketer Vinay Iyer will coach Japan against India at the Asian Games
Two decades after a 5.15am bus to Charni Road, he's on the other side of the boundary rope, telling bowlers how to face Smriti Mandhana
Vinay Iyer, a Mumbai club cricketer who once arranged his life around a 5.15am bus to make practice on time, will be on the other side of the boundary rope on Friday, as coach of Japan’s women’s cricket team at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. Their opponents: India.
He knows the Mumbai routine well enough that the memory still comes easily. He would take the early bus from home to Thane railway station, catch a train into the city, and make it to the Police Gymkhana at Charni Road by 7.15 sharp. Practice, then college, then more cricket in the evening. Later, work entered the picture too: practice at Charni Road, office in Andheri, home in Thane. For a while, Iyer kept it up. Eventually, geography won.
Nearly two decades later, cricket has brought him to another commute, another country, and a situation he could scarcely have imagined as a young player crossing Mumbai’s maidans.
