India, July 8 -- Earlier this year, Akash Deep was in Pune with his seriously ailing brother-in-law, helping him to get back on his feet. And every time he was in Lucknow during IPL, Akash spent sleepless nights keeping vigil at a Lucknow hospital where his elder sister, who the world now knows, was admitted for cancer treatment.

It's as if despair is hell bent on shadowing a man, who had lost his father and brother in the space of six months. Saurasish Lahiri, the former Bengal skipper, recalls Akash once asking him, in a moment of helplessness, if there would ever be a silver lining. "I just told him: 'God burdens those who can shoulder this kind of responsibility'," Lahiri says.

Akash soldiered on. This is a man who until he was 20 d...