Just a game? Anything but

It's the eve of the Challengers Trophy, India's high profile domestic encounter featuring the national side and two other almost on-par teams comprising players seeking a comeback and those on the threshold of an international career. At the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai there is a net session in progress as small clusters of onlookers gathered in the stands, the net bowlers, and even some of the ground staff break into spontaneous applause as the stars of Indian cricket take their turn.

It's Yuvraj Singh's turn and he slams cover-drives with bone-crunching intensity as Virender Sehwag lobs him half-volleys in the name of throw downs.

Yuvraj is widely thought to be brash and arrogant and, as for me, I'm someone who has watched so many one-day games that it's sometimes a bit of a drag to whip up enthusiasm for yet another pyjama tournament. Between celebrity cricketer and seen-it-all reporter there was hardly anything that could surprise us. Or so we thought, till a young man, on all fours seemed to literally spring up from the lush green outfield to stop one of Yuvraj's trademark booming drives.

It was a moment so shocking but also so surreal. Dharamvir is 16, studies in the 11th standard, and lives in a small town called Muraina in Madhya Pradesh. He was born healthy, just like you and me, but soon lost the use of both legs through polio because of adverse reaction to an injection that was administered. His dark trousers are cut off at the knees not for reasons of fashion, but because they would otherwise drag along the floor as he crawled about on all fours.

He's traveled from Muraina to Chennai - in an unreserved train compartment in the sickeningly hot month of October, with little money or food - just to watch his favourite players in the Challenger Series. It's a tournament only two types of people care about: players trying to make an obtuse point against selectors who have dropped them, and journalists looking for interviews during the lead-up to the season. Yet, Dharamvir, who claims to be the captain of the Madhya Pradesh cricket team for the handicapped, has literally crawled his way almost 2000 kilometres, over 36 hours, just to be here.

Of course, it's not his first trip. He's been around a bit, and watched the team in Faridabad, Delhi, Guwahati .... And now, he's here in Chennai. "Don't just bowl offbreaks, toss in a legbreak once in a while," Yuvraj tells Dharamvir, as Sehwag ducked into the dressing-room for a toilet break. Dharamvir, his muscled forearms characteristic of those who have had to forego use of their lower limbs, was lobbing balls at Yuvraj, and seemed to know that offspin was a good option.

He hurled a few from a sitting position, his only position, and scuttled across the turf to collect the ball which was, thankfully, placed as close to him as possible. Initially it looked cruel - the most powerful hitter of a cricket ball in India since young Sachin Tendulkar, was pushing back offerings to a boy who could barely move quickly enough to get out of the way.

But you should have seen the look on Dharamvir's face. No official, or policeman, could force him off the field. No well-meaning net-bowler could usher him to the side to have some more gentle fielding practice. "You'll dive?" Yuvraj asked as he walked closer and bunted catches just to the left and right of Dharamvir. And dive he did - just don't ask me how - catching some, dropping some, and sporting a guileless grin all along.

It is for this that he came all the way from Madhya Pradesh. For some of us, it's hard enough, on decent airlines, with comfortable allowances, and shiny accreditation badges, to turn up for a press conference. For others, even this is too onerous a task, and the one-day game is a menace to society, a dilution of purity of the great game of cricket, a violation of the sanctity of Test cricket.

"Sometimes I feel bad, when guys like this turn up," said Yuvraj of the interaction, "but it just shows what this game means to people in our country. I just tried to make him feel that there was nothing wrong with him, that he's like us."

If a game was ever not a game, and was something sacred, it was when Dharamvir bowled, and Yuvraj batted, and no-one kept score.