Cricketers who played the game despite losing their parents

Passion for winning matches cannot be compared with losing loved ones in one's life. It is a game that helps a professional cricketer to see a perspective of life through the glass of failure and success.

They learnt a lifelong lesson, but when it comes to cricket engagement and losing loved ones, say, parents, only a few cricketers have chosen cricket as their teams needed them and Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan was the latest addition to it.

Let us take a list of cricketers who decided to choose cricket over the sad demise of their loved ones.

---

#1 Virat Kohli

In 2006, Virat Kohli, a young talented 17-year-old, lost his father when his team was facing Karnataka on the final day of the match. His team was in need of him. The tear fell from the young cheek of Kohli when his father, Prem Kohli, 54, took his last breath at 3 AM due to a heart attack. His allowed him to play the innings and waited until he had left.

Karnataka team was confused when they got the wicket of young Kohli at 90. They saw how a 17-year-old boy turned his pain to the enthusiasm and played one of the remarkable innings of his life. His innings protected Delhi from shameful defeat. He saw the replay of his dismissal and reported that he was not out. He then convinced his teammates that he has to leave now as his father would be cremated at around 3.30 PM.

"I still remember the night my father passed away as it was the hardest time in my life. But the call to play the morning after my father's death came instinctively to me. I called my (Delhi) coach in the morning. I said I wanted to play because for me not completing a cricket game is a sin. That was a moment that changed me as a person. The importance this sport holds in my life is very, very high," Kohli said.

#2 Sachin Tendulkar

SACHIN TENDULKAR

In 1999, in the middle of World Cup tournament, Sachin Tendulkar lost his pillar of life, his father Ramesh Tendulkar. Sachin had to come back from England. Everybody was shocked when they heard that Sachin lost his father. His family was shocked and shattered.

He digested his pain and walked into the field, turning his pain into determination. He flew back home, attended his father's funeral, came back to England, joined the team and played against Kenya. He played the innings with excellence and tributed his father Ramesh Tendulkar with a hundred.

"That was the most difficult stage of my life. At that moment my mom said that even my father would have wanted me to go back and play, because if I sit back at home then it would possibly be the worst thing," Sachin said.