Rainas wait for a Wednesday repeat

Talking to The Indian Express,Dinesh confided that the turning point in Raina’s life came “when one of my friends phoned me and asked me come and see Raina bat during a local cricket tournament. It was perhaps in the late ’90s. When I reached there,I saw Raina scoring three consecutive sixes. I was so impressed by his batting that I made up my mind to get Raina admitted to Sports College,Lucknow where his talent was ably groomed by the seasoned coaches Deepak Sharma and SP Krishan. He started taking part in prestigious tournaments from Sports College itself and since then there has been no looking back for him.”

He is really hard working. “When I had a chat with him at around 1.30 am after the India-Pakistan match,then we were all quite thrilled to hear the cheer in his voice. When I praised his efforts in the match against Pakistan and the earlier one against Australia,he only said that if we work hard we will be successful and that the entire team had contributed to that victory,” Dinesh said.

Mukesh who is Suresh’s eldest brother,revealed that Raina’s friends always look for an opportunity when they can celebrate Raina’s contribution to Team India.

“They had arranged for the ‘dhols’ and started distributing sweets to celebrate the India’s victory over Pakistan in the semi-finals. The excitement among the people was so much that some fans also attempted to scale the boundary wall of our house. We were delighted to see the celebration from our house. We hope that India is able to win back the prestigious cup tomorrow after a gap of 28 long years.”