Hokaito Zhimomi is not a name many would associate with the IPL. He never even played an IPL game. But it’s fair to say that he made enough of an impression on a certain John Buchanan that he reserved a chapter for him – The boy from Nagaland – in his book ‘Future of Cricket’.
Hailing from Nagaland, where cricket doesn’t quite top popularity charts, Zhimomi learned playing the game on football turfs. With no academy or coach to teach him cricket, he developed his skills by playing in whatever tournament he could get to when he was growing up. Finding confidence in his left-arm medium pace, he convinced his parents to send him to Guwahati. From there, he moved to Kolkata where he played in the age levels with the likes of Manoj Tiwary and Wriddhiman Saha. Few years down the line came the IPL and while Zhimomi didn’t get picked, he did find a chance to bowl his left-arm medium pace to the Kolkata batters in the pre-tournament training session.
That was supposed to be it for him but the stubborn Naga boy decided to try his luck. And that kicked-off a beautiful little relationship between a young and enthusiastic cricketer from the absolute fringe of the Indian cricketing eco-system and a 2-time World Cup winning champion coach, who saw in the youngster much more than what others did.
Buchanan writes in his book, “Hokaito Zhimomi arrived one day pleading for the chance to be a net bowler, and he stuck like a limpet to our franchise for the entire tournament. When I gave him permission to bowl his left-arm medium pace on the first afternoon of training, I never imagined he would become a permanent fixture in our training set-up. Training that day went for two to three hours and he never stopped bowling. He bowled himself into the ground.”
In no time, his popularity surged and he even got on the team bus, often getting the driver to drop him on the team’s way to the hotel, according to Buchanan. “The Hok became so entrenched in our system that our co-owner Shah Rukh Khan would acknowledge him at functions, much to the angst of some of our contracted players,” recalls Buchanan in his book.
“He saw himself as a symbol of hope for his region. And I saw him as a young man setting an inspirational example to his peers from Nagaland. If enthusiasm and desire counted for anything, Hokaito was a champion.”
According to Buchanan, there were quite a few who didn’t think very highly of him in that setup but he did. He writes about Hok, “He would tell me he was the only cricketer from Nagaland and was desperate for a start. His attitude was amazing. He was simply not going to let go of his dreams, and he was going to do anything he had to do to stay there, around our franchise, in the hope of being called upon. I knew I would never be tapping on his door asking him to play, but I went out of my way to make sure he could stay around our group anyway. Most in our franchise felt he was just living off the IPL system, and he was. But I doff my hat to him. He was a young kid trying his guts out. He had come to the big city from a place where not one person has reached any reasonable level of representative cricket, and he was trying to be the first cricketer from his region to gain prominence.”
After spending time with the KKR unit in 2008 and 2009, Zhimomi became the first from his state in 2012 to play in the Ranji Trophy when he made his debut for Assam as a guest player. He switched to batting somewhere along his cricketing journey and has played for Nagaland since the team got a chance to play in the tournament in 2018-19. He even led the North East Zone in the Duleep Trophy when the team was included in the tournament for the first time in 2022.
Probably at the fag end of his career now, Zhimomi has been a true trail-blazer for cricket in his state who has turned out in 37 First Class matches and even has a century to his name.
Buchanan was right about him being a champion.
(This article was originally published on Random Cricket Photos That Make Me Happy)