U-19 World Cup: Making of Raj Angad Bawa - A chance trip to Dharamsala and influence of father's "student" Yuvraj Singh

Raj Angad Bawa was just another happy-go-lucky kid, who effortlessly got good grades in school and loved to groove to the beats of Bhangra till he was 13 years old. With the hill-station of Dharamsala hosting an international cricket match back in the day, DAV Chandigarh's cricket coach Sukhwinder Singh Bawa decided to take his teenager son to watch the game. Something changed in little Raj and as a father, for Sukhwinder it didn't go unnoticed that son's focus shifted with nimble "footsteps" making way for deft "footwork". And the result was an all-rounder performance at the global stage albeit at the junior level.

"He started playing (cricket) when he was 11 or 12 years old before that he wasn't interested in it. He liked to listen and dance to Punjabi songs on the television," father Sukhwinder recollected as if it was just yesterday.

"He went on tour with me to Dharamshala and saw a lot of intense matches being played out. After that, he started sitting with me in team meetings and his interest in cricket arose from there. After that, he started playing seriously," sense of satisfaction was palpable in Sukhwinder's voice as he spoke to PTI from his Chandigarh residence where a posse of reporters and camera-persons had already planted themselves.

Photo credit: ICCThe son was ripping the heart out of 'Young Lions' top-order and the father was enjoying all the attention coming his way.

Those five wickets that Raj got in the final wasn't his alone but also belonged to Sukhwinder, who was living his dream through his son. Sukhwinder wasn't even born when his father Tarlochan Singh Bawa had played alongside Balbir Singh Senior, Leslie Claudius and Keshav Dutts to win independent India's maiden Olympic hockey gold in