UAE : Chundangapoyil Puthiyapurayil Rizwan, better known as CP Rizwan began his cricketing journey playing in the family backyard after school and during weekends with his cousins. This was in Tellicherry, a town in Kerala, India, which has a rich cricketing tradition. He nursed the dream of becoming a cricketer, but failed in his first attempt, as he was rejected from the Kannur district under-13 selection trials for not being in his whites (cricket attire). That was just the first hurdle in his long cricketing journey.

He wasn’t perturbed by that rejection though; for he made it to the district team in the very next year and subsequently to the zonal and state teams for various age groups – Kerala under-15 and Kerala under-19 teams. His cricketing commitments kept him busy during his school days, but that didn’t prevent him from academic excellence. He topped his school in the CBSE Grade 10 exams at the SN English Medium School in Punnol, Tellicherry. Then he went on to complete his Plus Two from the historic St. Joseph’s Higher Secondary School in Tellicherry with flying colours. He managed achieve this despite limited opportunities to attend classes. The only condition his parents had for him to pursue his cricketing dreams was not to compromise on his studies – and he did that with aplomb.

He went on to pursue a BTech in Instrumentation Engineering from the Cochin University of Science and Technology. It wasn’t an easy phase for him, as he found it quite difficult to attend classes like a regular student, besides, the demands of the engineering programme was very challenging. This was also the time he was knocking on the doors of the Kerala Ranji team, in the wake of his laudable performances as the captain of the Kerala under 25 team and the domestic league tournaments. In 2011, he toured with the Kerala senior side to South Africa along with the likes of Sanju Samson, and, subsequently, made it to the Kerala Ranji side during the 2012-13 season.

Unfortunately, he was running out of time to complete his engineering degree and this placed a lot of stress on him. Whether to forego the engineering degree and focus only on cricket or take a break from cricket and complete the engineering degree was a huge dilemma. He chose the latter and cleared the required dozen-odd papers to graduate. While this demonstrates his determination and perseverance for academic qualifications, it, however, diminished his chance of getting back into the Kerala Ranji side. He had lost significant time of competitive cricket during that period.

In the days following that, he got a couple of public sector offers to pursue his cricketing career, but he decided to heed the demands of a career in engineering and flew to the UAE in 2014, where his father was based. In the UAE, Rizwan continued to play for local clubs, even while he was busy hunting for a career in engineering. He got employed by Atkins in Dubai, in a role that matched his engineering specialization, and he continued to pursue his passion for cricket by playing in the local leagues after work hours and during weekends.

During this stage, Rizwan nurtured a dream of playing for the UAE someday, and perhaps, the world cup as well. But those were early days…

With his consistent performance in the UAE domestic circuit, he slowly started to believe that playing for UAE was a very likely possibility. But, with a full time job he was being constrained by time and space to fulfil the responsibilities of both roles. He hardly found time to rest or for family, as he had to juggle his full time job and his cricketing commitments. In the meanwhile, with his stellar performance in the domestic leagues, he received an offer from the Bukhatir group, which he grabbed with both hands. This gave him even more visibility in the UAE domestic league and he made good use of all the opportunities he got.

But he was not ready to pause. He continued knocking at the doors of the UAE cricket team and finally, in Jan 2019, after meeting the ICC requirements, he was selected to the UAE team. This enhanced his cricketing presence, but he wasn’t doing justice to his talent, and the pandemic in 2020 only worsened things further with hardly any matches or opportunities for training. Then in January 2021, Rizwan played the innings of his life, scoring a match winning hundred in a one day international against a formidable test playing nation, Ireland.

Rizwan, however, wasn’t part of the UAE T20 squad that qualified for the world cup in Australia, but his stellar performances in the series against Scotland in August 2022 brought him back to the UAE’s T20 team. Rizwan was given the captaincy of the UAE T20 squad for the Asia cup qualifier in Oman in September 2022, and now he will continue to lead the team for the T20 World Cup in Australia, from October 16 to November 13, 2022.

At 34 years of age Rizwan believes his best is yet to come and the World Cup stage is set for him to showcase his talent and passion for the game. From being rejected in the under13 selection trials in 2000 to captaining an international cricket team in a world cup in 2022, the long journey has been challenging, but what has been constant is his passion, belief, hard work and relentless perseverance. A perfect recipe to pursue one’s dreams.

Rizwan’s story is, indeed, an inspiration to all.