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Sports News
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by_emR3 SaVSaK.CoM
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Posted online: Sunday, November 20, 2005 at 3:23:33 PM
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For Goolam Raja, manager of the South African cricket team, every trip to India is memorable and a means to refresh his Indian roots.
The second generation Indian-South African, currently visiting India for the five-match one day international series, coming on a tour to the country is like "coming home culturally".
"It has been more than 10 years of coming back to India and I have made five trips with the team here, but it was the World Cup held in the subcontinent in 1996 that was the most memorable," Raja told IANS here.
Raja was the assistant manager of the South African cricket team when India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka jointly hosted the 1996 World Cup.
Speaking about his roots, he said: "My grandfather immigrated from Gujarat to South Africa and both my father and I were born there, but coming on a tour to India is coming home culturally.
"We had no doubts while growing up, where we belonged culturally and ours was a typical Indian household though we were very proud of being South African."
With more than 260 one-day Internationals, 102 Test matches, three Cricket World Cups and three ICC Champions Trophy tournaments to his credit, Raja is the most experienced team manager in the international game.
Speaking about his days growing up in South Africa as a kid, Raja said the fact that he was of Indian origin did not matter because it was a well-integrated society there.
"The South African government is very supportive of various ethnic groups and we are perfectly free to practice our religions and cultural habits as we see fit.
"We were lucky that we all had equal opportunity to practice and play any sport we wanted and that is a blessing."
Though Raja played cricket only at the club level, he has been closely linked with the resurgence of South African cricket.
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