MUMBAI: The names of all the top sports awardees who have worked for the Western Railways have been put up in a Western Railway Board at the Churchgate station. This list includes Kishan Lal (captain of India’s 1948 Olympics hockey gold medal-winning team), former India men’s cricket captain Nari Contractor, ex-India women’s cricket captain Diana Edulji , former India women’s hockey team captains Eliza Nelson & Selma D’Silva (all Padma Shri Awardees), former India basketball player Ram Kumar (Dhyan Chand Awardee), Subhash B Agarwal (snooker) and Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma & Shardul Thakur’s childhood coach Dinesh Lad (both Dronacharya awardees).
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Contractor, who received the Padma Shri awardee in 1962), is revered for his fighting qualities and leadership -his Test career was cruelly cut short when he was struck on the skull by a short delivery from West Indies’ fiery pacer Charlie Griffith in the Indian tourists’ colony game against Barbados in 1962. Edulji, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 2002, took 109 wickets in 54 internationals (20 Women’s Tests and 34 WODIs). The 69-year-old was a member of the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) running the BCCI in 2018-19 and took plenty of steps to promote women’s cricket and improve facilities for the Indian women’s cricket team during her stint.
“It indeed is a great honour for me and my fellow railway sportspersons to have a honour board put at the Churchgate station. Thank you, Western Railway!” Edulji told TOI.
A Dronacharya Award winner in 2022, Lad is famous for shaping the careers of international stars such as Rohit Sharma and Shardul Thakur and many Mumbai cricketers. Lad was the head coach of the Mumbai Under-16 team, and also the Swami Vivekananda International School (Mumbai), for which Rohit played in the Harris Shield.
“It’s a proud feeling for me. I joined Western Railway as class IV employee in 1982 under the sports quota, and today my name is etched at the Churchgate station along with all these legends! It’s a huge achievement for me. I’m just the second Dronacharya awardee from Western Railways’ history (after Subhash B Agarwal won this award for billiards & snooker in 2010),” Lad told TOI.
