He never played in the Indian Premier League (IPL), and yet he left a lasting impression in the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) camp
Since 2008, the IPL has provided opportunities to thousands of grassroots players from the remotest parts of India. Among a plethora of such players who made a name for themselves, there is one player who couldn't do so, and yet he still left a lasting impression on the KKR camp.
The player hails from Nagaland, a part of India where cricket isn't as significant as it is in the rest of the country. A state where children grow up with football, but Zhimomi dreamt of playing cricket. This is the tale of a Naga player whose story is now going viral, thanks to a Facebook page named 'Random Cricket Photos That Make Me Happy'.
Ask any cricket fan about Hokaito Zhimomi, and they will be left clueless, but the Naga player found a place in coach John Buchanan's book 'Future of Cricket'. Hailing from Nagaland, Zhimomi learnt cricket on football turfs and played in local tournaments to hone his skills and experience.
When he found confidence in his left-arm medium pace bowling, he convinced his parents to allow him to move to Guwahati, and from Guwahati, he moved to Kolkata. He shared the dressing room with the likes of Manoj Tiwary and Wriddhiman Saha, but unfortunately, he wasn't good enough to be picked in the IPL.
Despite not getting a chance in the IPL, Zhimomi came across Buchanan and pleaded with the then KKR's coach to allow him to do net bowling. In the book Buchanan wrote, 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 setup. Training that day went for two to three hours, and he never stopped bowling. He bowled himself into the ground."
Zhimomi impressed everyone with his bowling, including Shah Rukh Khan. As per Buchanan, he was allowed on the team bus and invited to various team parties, which weren't handed out to net bowlers and batsmen. "He saw himself as a symbol of hope for his region. And I saw him as a young man setting an inspirational example for his peers from Nagaland. If enthusiasm and desire counted for anything, Hokaito was a champion," added Buchanan.
Zhimomi never got the opportunity to show his skills in the IPL, but in 2012, he became the first player from Nagaland to play in the Ranji Trophy as a guest player, debuting for Assam. In 2022, he even led the North East Zone to the Duleep Trophy when the team made its debut in the tourney.
At present, Hokaito Zhimomi is 38 years old with 37 first-class matches under his belt. He switched to batting and has scored 1,285 runs, including two centuries and five half-centuries. He has also played 318 List A games and 272 T20Is.
