RALPH MENEZES is four years old and he hails from the western state of Goa. His father was an average volleyball player during his playing days. Ask the nursery student what his career ambitions are at the moment and who is his role model, and he will say that he wants to be a cricketer like Swapnil Asnodkar.

Yes, the pint-sized dynamo of Rajasthan Royals, winners of the first Indian Premier League (IPL) Twenty20 title, has fired many ambitions among the kids in this football-crazy state. When the first ball was bowled in Bangalore in the inaugural match between Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders, cricket pundits had no hint of the hidden talent of Asnodkar, which hit the IPL like a tornado.

The opener, who has drawn comparison with another diminutive wicketkeeper batsman from Srilanka, Romesh Kaluwitharana, was an unknown face even in his home state in Goa until his heroics in the IPL.

But the gutsy batsman took on the world’s best bowlers in the Twenty20 format of the game and is now a household name, not only in Goa but also in the rest of India and the other cricket-playing nations. The flying starts he gave to the team were a keystone to the success of the Rajasthan Royals.

Underdogs at the beginning of the tournament, they won the cup under the astute captaincy of spin guru Shane Warne. But the Aussie wizard was quick to point out the sterling performances of Asnodkar and Yusuf Pathan in the team’s winning cause.

The young lad from Goa has gone on record saying that the IPL has made him a better player and that a large part of his improvement was due to the encouragement and support he got from captain Warne and other international team-mates. Ravi Shastri, no less, described him as the find of the tournament.

Royals team manager Darren Berry revealed, "During a mini-break in mid-May, when some of us foreigners went to Goa to relax, Asnodkar, who is a native, invited us to have dinner at his family home one night. Warne, Shane Watson, Graeme Smith, myself and Snape got into a car and drove 45 minutes to Swapnil’s house. His parents were there along with his grandfather, who came up later and said, in Hindi, I can die a happy man. Shane Warne sitting in my lounge room.... "

Officials in Goa are upbeat that the local cricketers have found a role model, whom they can emulate. Till now, the beach-resort state has been a football powerhouse, competing with Bengal, Kerala, Punjab and Maharashtra for supremacy in Indian football, both at inter-state and club level.

The former-Portuguese colony has been a regular contributor to Indian football over the years. Three Goan-based players – Mahesh Gawli, Sameer Naik and Climax Lawrence – have recently been regular members of Bob Houghton’s senior side. The only Goan who has played international cricket for India is the late Dilip Sardesai while another Goa-born player, Antao De Souza, played Test cricket for Pakistan.

But the dynamic is changing. Goa Cricket Association secretary Chetan Dessai said, "There is a lot of money up for the grabs for the local cricketers if they take the game seriously. There are a lot of incentives offered by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), besides the Goa Cricket Association. Recently we have constructed three indoor pitches to help in the promotion of the game so that Goan cricketers can practice during the rainy season."

With Asnodkar having been part of the success story of the IPL tournament and Rajasthan Royals, several Goan cricketers are now fired up by the dream to excel at the domestic level and to make Goa a cricketing force. Three cheers to a young Goan cricketing dynamo – may he travel far and wide and conquer more fans around the world through his cricketing exploits.