Heartbroken batter wants to stay with the team and play their final Ranji Trophy league match on March 3
However, on February 12, Solanki was woken up close to midnight by the Baroda team manager Dharmendra Arothe, who told the player that his day-old daughter had died. The next day, a distraught Solanki packed his bags and flew back home. He missed Baroda’s first match of league phase, against Bengal, which was played between February 16 and 19.
“He said he had dedicated the century to his daughter,” team manager Arothe told ESPNcricinfo on February 25. Solanki did not even get to hold his little girl while she was alive.
Chandigarh and Baroda wore black arm bands on Sunday. The match referee Amit Pathak also gave Solanki permission to use the phone in the dressing room to talk with his family. “He saw the funeral of his dad virtually from the dressing room,” Arothe said. Both teams along with the match officials also observed two minutes’ silence in the memory of two family members Solanki had lost.
The Baroda Cricket Association has promised him all the help he might need, including flying him back home, but Solanki informed the team management he wants to stay and play their last league game of the season, against Hyderabad, starting on March 3.
Nagraj Gollapudi is news editor at ESPNcricinfo