AN INSPIRING JOURNEY OF  MR GAUTAM HAZARIKA

Beginning of his cricket journey

Gautam Hazarika started his cricket journey as a player when he was doing his schooling in Guwahati, Assam. Gautam Hazarika got inspired and passionate about the game of cricket from his brother Prabin Hazarika and he started to play along with him in front of their colony with their other neighbors.

After looking at his dedication and passion for cricket his family decided to admit him to the Assam Town Club Association and Gautam Hazarika began his journey from there onwards, he got matches to play where he got to figure out his strengths and weaknesses in cricket work on it to rectify his flaws and be better in it.

Gautam Hazarika played his first ever official match which was under 19 Cooch Bihar Trophy district as well as state tournament he went for the trials and players immensely well so the selectors selected him for the further matches. In 1975 at Tripura, there was a zone tournament where only zones like Odisha, Bengal, Bihar, Tripura etc could play.

Earlier there were matches like now where every team needed to play with the other team there only used to be zone tournaments and matches where they kept it among themself and whoever wins gets the chance to go forward.

In early 1975 their zone became the champions by defeating Odisha and Tripura in the finals after winning Gautam Hazarika along with more 4 players got selection for the main East Zone team next zonal tournament was held in Guwahati where they again won the tournament and because of their immense performance they again got chance to go in the 3rd year zonal tournament they went to Patna for the U-19 match and became all zonal champions.

By playing such zonal matches all over Gautam Hazarika gave a great performance in some of the matches and because of his dedication and hard work selected him for the U-19 Test match which was India vs England.

It was his first time playing for his country in the U-19 Test match and Gautam Hazarika gave a good but not a great type of performance in 4 days straight after U-19 because of his performance and being a constant player in cricket, he got a chance in the U-23 for 3 years in Assam from which 2 years e dedicated to East Zone and also he played for Assam in the Cooch Bihar trophy for 3 years as well and this was his fabulous journey as a player from a colony slum player to Ranji trophy he had a long way to up where he is now.

Gautam Hazarika wanted to teach and spread cricket as much as possible that’s why he decided to start the journey of a cricket coach also Assam government sent him to do the NIS course which is for around one year in Gujarat, Gandhi Nagar after coming back from the course he took few coaching camps for showing his extravagant coaching and knowledge for cricket.    

Challenges that are faced during the journey

After their official retirement as a cricket coach in 2020, Gautam Hazarika was so dedicated to cricket that he decided to open his coaching center to teach many people around the locality during his own coaching time in around 1987 it has crossed more than 24 years till date and after his retirement, he was fully into his coaching center because his main aim is to bring more players who are dedicated to playing and hoping for their success in cricket he decided to create this center.

Many players even came out of his coaching being successful players who played Ranji as well as all categories of men and even many women are also there who played in all categories and have proved their caliber whenever they can. Gautam Hazarika is always regular at his coaching center because he is the main head of the center and he needs to direct the mentors about their daily activities with the students so he never takes a day off from his devotion to cricket.

But being so devoted to cricket still he needed to face many challenges during his early days as a coach as well as running a coaching center because at the peak of his career, he was a coach as well as working in the Indian Oil and because of lack of time he needs to leave his cricket as a player and also as a coach because he couldn’t manage both at a particular time.

But when he realized the value cricket holds in his life he quit his work in Indian Oil and came to his coaching line to prove as a coach he overcame the money factor because for him his passion was more important than money.

When he retired and started his coaching center he faced a lot of problems like there wasn’t any proper ground for practice and maintaining a good playable pitch there required a lot of equipment which wasn’t available then but his ground was helped by the Assam Cricket Association (ACA) because of which they could establish their ground properly and after that, they started their coaching career again but this time in their own self established ground.   

Conclusion

In conclusion, we all can get inspired by Gautam Hazarika’s biopic not only Crickets because he ultimately decided to go for his dream and goal rather than just do a job and money which most of us nowadays do. After all, in the end, we all want to earn money rather than be successful in what we aim for.

He has faced a lot of problems too in his career overall to date, he was in Indian Oil to get a high earning but he decided to leave that and join cricket without even knowing whether even if can succeed in that field again or not but he didn’t lose hope and he keeps on going and tackling all the problems and challenges.