Indian speedster Jasprit Bumrah has opened up about how it was tough for him to convince his family that taking up cricket was not a bad professional choice, as he belongs to an academically inclined background.

Well, Bumrah’s childhood wasn’t easy, as his mother Daljit was the sole earner in his family after his father passed away when he was young. The Indian pacer’s mother worked as a principal at a primary school, and she toiled hard to make their lives easier.

Since playing professional cricket was not a viable career path for his mother, she wanted Bumrah to excel at the English language in order to get a stable job. However, the 28-year-old said that there was no pressure on him to become a doctor or an engineer at any point, and he was clear about his goal.

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Jasprit Bumrah told GQ in an exclusive interview: “I was very clear about what I wanted to do. My family was not able to understand that playing cricket professionally was a viable career path because my family was academically inclined, but it was always about cricket for me.”

He signed off by saying, “My mother was never firm in saying to me, ‘This is what you have to do’, but she did want me to have a career that would give me security. But that’s about it. She did not force anything on me, never told me I had to become a doctor or engineer. In fact, because I was usually playing cricket, it would have been challenging for my mother to imagine me as a doctor or engineer. However, my mother was adamant that I master the English language because she was a school principal.”