A common man with an uncommon collection

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 23

Fifty-four-year-old Dharamveer Duggal, an old cricket lover, has perhaps the largest collection of over 450 bats, balls and biographies — all bearing ‘signatures’ of world’s best cricketers.

It has taken him 25 years to collect the rarest of the collections while literally running after well-known names of cricket to get their signatures on his ‘golden collection’.

His passion to collect signatures kicked off after he read an article about “how fans get cricketers’ appreciation-letters”. With no Twitter or Facebook accounts to follow, in early 90’s, Duggal started writing letters to a few cricketers and in no time started receiving a positive response from his favourite list.

Today, Duggal possesses over 450 bats, bearing signatures of big names, including Kapil Dev, Yuvraj Singh, Brain Lara, Sir Garry Sobers, Ramiz Raja, Viv Richards and many others. He also has a small-size bat signed by Yuvi, six times, after his thunderstorm striking innings of six sixes in an over against England.

The cricket lover also has autographed cricket balls bearing names, including Michael Holding, Denis Lillee, Glenn McGrath, Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram (thrice signed by him), Javagal Srinath, Imran Khan among others.

In his special collection, he even has a ball signed by both Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan, twice on each side, on different occasions. In the recent updates, he has received a written communication from the Guinness World Record Group to submit his collection for displaying it in various stadiums of the world. “I remember breaking many security covers to get these autographs. It’s been so many years since I am collecting these valuables. It has become more of a passion,” Duggal said.

His autograph collection goes over 3,000-mark while, he also has over 300 letters in reply by many international and national cricketers. The most valuable addition in his kitty is a gold coin gifted by John Bradman, son of Sir Donald Bradman, on his father’s birth centenary. He also has a signed biography of Sir Donald Bradman, Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar. “I also met Mohd Jahangir Khan (chirimaar) who played for India in the early 30s and later whose son (Majid Khan) used to open for Pakistan. At that time, he autographed a Re 1 note for me and asked me to keep it with me till my last breath,” said Duggal while adding that he would continue to make more value addition to his ‘golden collection’.