Singh meets royalty among T20 World Cup festivities

ONE of Torquay Cricket Club’s biggest names is still pinching himself after spending six hours with cricket royalty, helping India’s national cricket team warm up in preparation for its T20 World Cup campaign.

Torquay pace bowler Gurpreet Singh was one of only a handful of local cricketers to get the call-up to bowl to members of Team India, sharing tips and taking in the same air as players such as Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik and none other than Virat Kohli, to name a few.

“My dream has always been to meet the Indian team one day, but I never thought I’d get to spend six hours with these guys,” Singh said.

“From sharing drinks to lunch and feeling the culture that this team has, it was an amazing experience, a dream come true.”

The Torquay Tiger recruit, now in his second season at the club, took part in two three-hour shifts with the Indian team on Friday between 10am-1pm, and Saturday between 3-6pm.

Singh, a Punjabi man originally from northern India, said he had received close to 400 calls from people he knew all over the world in the span of a few days, as a result of two interviews he gave to two Indian news broadcasters that reached more than seven million viewers.

“After only six hours with the team, I felt like a star for three days, but things are slowly getting back to normal,” he said.

Torquay’s John Fisher and Terry Hill were also fortunate enough to receive international bowling stints, as Fisher bowled to both the Netherlands and Namibia, and Hill bowled to Sri Lanka.