Welcome to the first edition of Wickets’ fifth volume. It’s hardly to believe that
Wickets is now entering its fifth year of publication as Cricket Canada’s Online
Magazine. The four years that have now passed since Cricket Canada’s granted me its permission to proceed with publishing monthly Issues of Wickets toward “the further promotion and publicity of
Canadian cricket as well as its governing body’s initiatives and activities,” have certainly been most
interesting. To say the very least!
In celebration of the commencement of Wickets’ fifth Volume
of monthly Issues, we are pleased to feature a brand-new
Canadian cricketer’s collage as part of the publication’s logo.
From left to right the featured players are Rayyan Pathan, Harsh
Thaker, Divya Saxena, Rabbjyot Rajput, Mihir Patel and Anoop
Chima.
Pathan and Thaker have been chosen as suitable representatives
for Canada’s Senior Men’s cricket, the former unquestionably
now the country’s most exciting batsman, the latter an equally
promising, highly talented, all-rounder who symbolizes the
enormous future potential of the sport in this country.
Likewise, Divya Saxena and Rabbjyot Rajput as the Women’s
cricket representatives. Divya as the current National poster
girl, Rabby as her very likely replacement in the not-too distant
future.
The final two images, those of Mihir Patel and
Anoop Chima, are representative of Canada’s Rising Stars
cricketers. Both Patel and Chima were outstanding at the most
recently held ICC U19 World Cup in terms of their respective
performances.
Rabbjyot Rajput is also featured as this month’s Wickets cover
photo. As an all-rounder of merely fourteen years old, Rajput
announced her arrival to Canadian Women’s cricket with
outstanding bowling performances during the recently held
National T20 Championships.
Playing for the Ontario Heat, Rabby as she has become fondly known to all, belied your
teenage years to emerge as the tournament’s third highest
wicket-taker. Her eleven wickets tally was only three short
of the eventual tournament leader Sonali Vig, a veteran of
Canadian Women’s cricket and who at age forty-seven is now
three-plus decades older than the budding Rabby.
As is evident from the enclosed pages 8-9 cover feature on Rajput, which was based on
her direct responses to the interview questions that were posed to her, she is extremely levelheaded
and totally focused on her Canadian cricket goals and objectives. Mentored as she is by
her devoted father, Himmat Rajput, who is himself now still actively playing League cricket within
the GTA, we have no doubt whatsoever that she will ultimately be highly successful in fulfilling
all that she has outlined for herself. Indeed, our hopes and predictions are that it now won’t be
much longer before she makes her international debut as a Canadian National Women’s player.
She is that talented.
Wickets’ fifth volume Issues will now also be graced by the writings of Monali Patel, the former
Canadian National Women’s cricketer turned impressively ultra-qualified Coach and even more
recently widely acknowledged and admired Cricket Commentator. Patel, whose very admirable
Canadian cricket coaching aspirations were featured in the Wickets July 2022 Issue which
preceded this edition, will henceforth share her opinions on a variety of wide-ranging topics
under a “Monali’s Musings” byline which promises to provide very interesting reading.
Also, of hopefully similarly arduous interest to our Readers, the numbers of which have finally,
thankfully started to show signs of meaningful and significant increases, will be the future addition of
Eddie’s Archives. As the title suggests, Eddie’s Archives will be a monthly historical focus on
some of the images photographer Eddie Norfolk has captured during his unequalled years of
covering Canadian Cricket.
As excited as I am to be continuing as the Publisher for all of the interesting content Wickets’
fifth Volume is seemingly poised to deliver not unlike all others who were privileged to have
known them personally, I have been immensely saddened by the loss this August month of two
Canadian cricket stalwarts within a day of each other.
The August 15th very sad news of Wijay Senathirajah’s demise was followed just a day later by that of Francis Whaite’s departure to the Great Beyond. Having known Wijay since the early nineties and Whaitey for even longer from playing against him in domestic cricket back in our native Guyana through to our times as Grace
Church Clubmates here in Canada, I can attest to how wonderful they both were as individuals.
They will both now be sadly missed and fondly remembered by all who knew them. May their
souls rest in peace!