India, May 23 -- A ten-year-old Prince Yadav had just returned from a tennis-ball game to his home in Dariyapur Khurd Village in Delhi's Najafgarh, when he stood before a mirror and told himself: 'I want to play for India'. Not long after, coach Amit Vashistha spotted him while passing a local ground on his scooter - a chance moment that would change everything.

Cut to fifteen years later. Prince, now finding his feet as a rising IPL star, was asleep in the plush sheets of a five-star hotel in Jaipur earlier this week when his phone rang. On the other end were words he had been itching to hear all his life - you have been selected to play for India in the upcoming ODI series against Afghanistan.

The dream now has a date, an opponent, an...