Meet Nilesh Mehta — Oncologist Practitioner Turned Cricket Scribe During T20 World Cup 2024

Guyana: Meet Dr Nilesh Mehta. A practising medical oncologist who doubles up as a cricket reporter and is covering the T20 World Cup for the Chicago-based daily Hi India.

Like the now legendary Saurabh Netravalkar, the USA techie pacer working for Oracle, who super bowled Pakistan out of the T20 World Cup, Mehta, too, has been doing the balancing act by taking up patient issues while covering the tournament.

“Balancing is very important. Right now, I am on a cricket vacation after which I will be in the process of shifting to Arizona to work with an organisation called Hope for Life,” he says, adding that the rush at his clinic is for now being handled by his two other partners, who come online when his bite comes in.

Mehta was initiated into cricket writing by chance when “my friend and brother Vijay Lokapally took me to the Delhi Golf Club for breakfast.” “There, I saw Kapil Dev walking towards us. I excitedly told my friend that Kapil was walking towards us. And then he came and sat with us and Lokapally told me he wanted me to meet him,” he recalls.

That’s when his passion for the game translated into his desire to write about it. “I started writing for cricket and travelling for the World Cup way back in 2010, 14 years ago. It has been a brilliant and satisfying journey till now,” he tells you.

For Dr Mehta, the anxieties of being a cancer specialist, wherein he has to deal with so much death around him, cricket is a source of relief, a game that gives him relief from the depressing side of his actual profession.

“It gives me a release from all my anxieties. It calms me down. It gives me a break. What’s best, I love this relief trigger which comes in the form of me having to watch and write on a game that I love to be with,” he says.