The story of Zunaid Paiker is one such story that will make you believe that anyone can achieve such a feat should they be passionate enough.

"It all started when I was very little. I'll have to thank my father for the special opportunity — he arranged for me to be a ball boy for the Wills International Cup, back in 1998. It was a chance to meet the players up close and interact with them. And this is where I started my journey of collecting memorabilia — with autographs," reminisced Paiker, while fiddling with a pair of gloves of Shakib-Al-Hasan, that he wore while scoring the century against West Indies (2019). He seemed to be very fond of this piece. And why not? It's been marked by Shakib himself and it's one of the recent additions in his huge collection that includes all sorts of things.

Caps, gloves, cricket balls, coins, jerseys, coat pins, keyrings, books, tie, autographs, signed photos, replica trophies, signed bats — you name it. Anything you can think of, he's probably got it in his collection.

The best way to support your team is by showing up at the stadium, but Zunaid Paiker doesn't just show up, he even keeps the match tickets. There are bundles of tickets in his collection that include those for tawdry matches of the domestic league to high voltage matches of the World Cup. His passion is not just reflected in his collection, it's well recognised worldwide.

As the Co-founder and President of BCSA (Bangladesh Cricket Supporter's Association) he thinks it is very important for younger people to have hobbies since it channels your time into something that you enjoy and offers an opportunity to learn new things. You could really tell how much he loves his collection as he picked up one after another object from his collection and told a story.

"One of my fondest memories is with Mohammad Ashraful. I asked for an autograph and he was nice enough to invite me to his hotel room where he arranged for me to get the autograph of the whole team. It was just a few days before the 2011 world cup and players were very busy but he still managed it and that was very nice." And that's just one story, of a hundred more.

Another sagacious person who's spent over fifty years after his collection is M Mokhlesur Rahman. He personifies what is possible if you are passionate enough. He's been collecting stamps, books, magazines, coins and memorabilia but he's more focused on books and stamps and you could see it in his eyes as he flipped through pages after pages of his stamp collection. He's such a dedicated collector that he's got every single kind of cricket stamp and associated stamp that there is in the world. And he did not stop just there, he collected all the variations of those stamps as well. In his words — "I don't have 100 percent of the cricket stamps, I have got 200 percent of them". It started with magazines back in 1969, back when he used to listen to cricket commentary on radio and that's when his love for the game sparked.

His most prized possession is his collection of Wisden. Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, or simply Wisden, is often called the Bible of Cricket with a history of 158 years. M Mokhlesur Rahman has 122 years' worth of collection but he aims to get every single one of them. He's also managed to get cricket related books as much as he could manage and he managed a dazzling collection. If the original Wisden doesn't catch your eyes, then surely the book by Don Bradman will? What if it was autographed by Badman himself? One can't put a value on such a memorable piece.

Out of his memorabilia collections, he's got signed balls, bats and gloves. What will really catch your eye from this collection is the life size bat signed by all the players of both teams from when Bangladesh played Sri-Lanka in 2009. There were only two of those. The Sri-Lanka team took one with them and this passionate collector managed to get the other.

For the newcomers, he insists that rushing into a collection is not a good idea. "Slow down and think. It takes a lot of research, dedication and passion to maintain a collection so find out what interests you the most, otherwise you will lose your interest after a short while. Identify your interest and start researching," was his advice towards the beginners who might be interested in a similar journey.

It's not an easy task to turn your passion into something visible that depicts all your struggles and efforts but, it's not impossible and these two people are living proof of that. They also recognise how difficult it is to maintain such hobbies in Bangladesh, which is why they are both hopeful that once the Sheikh Hasina International Cricket Stadium is completed and accommodates its museum, it will change things for the better.

 M Mokhlesur Rahman is so hopeful about it that he's willing to donate his stamps collection should here be such a museum in Bangladesh that will protect and appreciate such a priceless collection.

Photo: Shahrear Kabir Heemel