Long before Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty gave a different meaning to fine leg in cricket, another Bollywood queen had put together her own dream team – with a Jaipur man as its captain.
Long before Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty gave a different meaning to fine leg in cricket, another Bollywood queen had put together her own dream team – with a Jaipur man as its captain.
Back in late 1960s, tragedy queen Meena Kumari formed a cricket team with Jaipur’s Latif Khan that lasted more than four years.
Khan, now 84, had gone to Mumbai in the 1960s to make it big as a cricketer. Here he played a few matches for Bombay Gymkhana, Mumbai's top-most sports club, but was soon dropped as he was a Rajasthani.
The rules then did not allow outsiders to play for the club in important tournaments.
But lady luck soon shone on him — literally. At the prize distribution of a prestigious cricket tournament, he met Meena Kumari, the chief guest.
“It was a common friend, also a cricketer, who introduced me to her. When I told her of my plight, she decided to launch her own team – The Golden Cricket Club – and made me its captain,” Khan, who lives in the Walled City, told DNA.
“Even Dutt Saab (Sunil) and Yusuf Saab (Dilip Kumar) played for the club in a friendly match,” he smiled.
And when Bollywood actors played cricket for the club, Khan even got a chance to act in movies. “I worked as an extra in movies as well; I worked in the film Man Mandir.”
Khan’s innings with the club soon after the actor died, in 1972. Khan, who coached young cricketers in Allahabad University after returning from Mumbai, now lives in penury.
“I earn Rs200 per day as a daily wager. I never thought about money as I devoted my entire life to cricket,” he said. The 84-year-old is now a mechanic at a workshop in front of Khole ke Hanumanji Temple.
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