Daddy's Day Out: Abhishek Sharma's father drops in at India nets

Dubai, Sep 13 (PTI) His son has been the new poster boy of India's T20 team and the glint in Rajkumar Sharma's eyes tells how much he is swelled with pride seeing Abhishek Sharma take the cricketing world by storm. Among the hundreds of obsessed fathers, who made sacrifices to push their son's sporting careers, Rajkumar is one of them and his effort has certainly fructified as Abhishek is now world's No. 1 T20 batter.

Having taken him to those junior age-group matches, it was certainly a surreal feeling for the proud father as he dropped in at the ICC Cricket Academy ahead of India's marquee Asia Cup clash against Pakistan.

This is the first time that the father has travelled abroad since Abhishek made his senior India team debut and would be watching him live from the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

As he walked near the Indian dressing room, a beaming Abhishek came out and hugged his father. One by one, his childhood Punjab teammates Shubman Gill and Arshdeep Singh also joined to exchange pleasantries with their 'Uncle', who has seen them all become world beating cricketers.

The father also got a souvenir from the Indian team -- Abhishek's cricket bat with autographs from the entire squad. As he wished luck and posed for photographs, there was significant jostling for his sound bites but he had a commitment with bcci.TV and hence couldn't oblige the waiting posse of mediapersons. PTI KHS KHS PDS PDS