By Younus Yousuf Ganie

In the mid-1990s, when most of south Kashmir evenings echoed with gunfire, a young boy in Bijbehara was chasing a ball made from rubber tape on a patch of cracked earth near the Jhelum.

For young Parvez Rasool, cricket was a way to carve joy out of the unease that filled the air.

Born in 1989 into a modest family, Parvez inherited both love and discipline for the game from his father, Ghulam Rasool, who had once represented Jammu and Kashmir in domestic cricket. The family lived simply, but cricket had a sacred place in their home.

On most mornings, Parvez would walk to the local ground with a borrowed bat and unrolled mat for a pitch, spending hours perfecting his flight and footwork. Those unstructured sessions by the riverbank built the foundation for a pl

See Full Page