Nineteen-year-old Vikramjit Singh is one of the brightest cricketing talents in the Netherlands. He will wait on Thursday against the country of his forefathers, India. According to Vikramjith, this is the biggest tournament of his international career.
Following rising insurgency in Punjab in the mid-1980s, Vikramjit’s grandfather Khushi Seema fled his village Seema Kurd near the Jalandhar border on a cold December night in 1984 to keep his family safe. They later settled in the Netherlands. But life there was very difficult because they didn’t know the language and it was a completely different culture. It took them a few years to settle down.
They suffered many hardships and faced discrimination. Back then, there was racism and they faced a lot because of their skin color, turbans and beards. But over time, things gradually loosened up. Khushi Seema, who started driving taxis in her new country, handed over her transport company to her son Harpreet before returning to India in 2000.
Vikramjit Seema was born in Kurd and moved to the Netherlands only after the age of seven. He does not have to face family problems. At the age of 11, he was spotted by the then Dutch captain Peter Boren in the U-12 tournament. He got sponsorship from a sports goods manufacturing company that manufactures and supplies bats to players like Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Harbhajan Singh.
At the age of 15, Vikramjith was already in the Netherlands ‘A’ side. Two years later, he made his senior team debut.
Being a professional cricketer in a football obsessed country like the Netherlands is not easy as the cricket season ends in September before the season ends in March. From 2015-16 to 2019-20, the youngster spent six months honing his skills at UNIAL’s Gurusagar Cricket Academy in Chandigarh. Vikramjith shifted his base to Jalandhar in 2021 and started training with former India U-19 player Taruwar Kohli, who also played for a club in Amsterdam.
“India has supported me all my life. Hopefully not on Thursday as it will be the biggest tournament of my international career so far,” said the promising cricketer.
