Jaffer, Fazal among many who grieve for TOI’s Ruchir Mishra

Nagpur: TOI Nagpur’s sports writer Ruchir Mishra passed away in the early hours of Tuesday due to Covid. He had turned 43 last month and was battling the deadly Covid virus since more than a couple of weeks at a city hospital.
Reporting domestic cricket — any age group — was Ruchir’s forte. His write-ups brought recognition to many players who went on to become stars. A fine example is Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Ruchir had written an article on the former India captain when Dhoni played at the Ajni ground in an Inter-Railway tournament.
Soon after the news of Ruchir’s demise spread, Twitter was flooded with grief as cricketers, both past and present, expressed their condolences.
Ex-Mumbai and Vidarbha veteran Wasim Jaffer was in disbelief. He described Ruchir as “one of the nicest journalists”. Vidarbha skipper Faiz Fazal said he shared a special bond with Ruchir ever since he started playing. Faiz admonished Ruchir for not “spending too much time in the middle”. “You deserved a hundred, Ruchir Bhai,” he tweeted.
Others to offer condolences on the social media were Umesh Yadav, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, Aakash Chopra and S Badrinath. Someone commented that “a lot of domestic players in this IPL owe their careers to Ruchir”.
Ruchir’s heart beat for cricket so much so that he had once contacted BCCI media manager Maulin Parikh to know about domestic fixtures three months in advance. “He had to attend a family function but didn’t want to miss matches. He said he would convince his family to have functions on non-match days,” wrote Parikh.
Hailing from Parasia in MP, Ruchir was an aspiring cricketer. He had attended former selector Sanjay Jagdale’s cricket camp in Indore for a couple of years. He was also the Chhindwada district table tennis champ.
After completing MBA from Tirpude College, Ruchir worked as a marketing executive for a couple of years. He then joined Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar and later moved to The Hitavada. In March 2008, Ruchir joined TOI.
His career highlight was covering Vidarbha’s Ranji titles. That the players hugged him as soon as they won the trophy, saying “bhaiya, hum jeet gaye” is testimony how they regarded him. However, no one got a chance to hug him one last time.
Ruchir, who was cremated on Tuesday evening at Mankapur ghat, leaves behind wife and two kids, 2 brothers, parents and other relatives.