I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Brett Lee in front of my door: SRH fan Janardhan Raju

What would you do if Bret Lee turned up at your door? For Janardhan Raju, a 43- year-old cricket fan of Sun Risers Hyderabad, this is exactly what happened as he was getting ready to head for the Uppal Stadium to catch his favourite team play. But right when he was getting himself painted up in the colours of the orange army — a self-styled get up he envisaged to flaunt his passion — his doorbell rang, and to his utter
bewilderment the former Australian fast bowler, Brett Lee was standing at his door.
“I had no clue whatsoever, I opened the door and saw him there with some TV channel people. I can’t explain how happy I was,” says a beaming Janardhan who works as a cargo coordinator at Shamshabad Airport.
Brett Lee visited the fan’s humble abode in LB Nagar on Saturday, right before Team Hyderabad was to take on the Dinesh Karthik-led Team Kolkata at the Uppal stadium, to acknowledge his hardcore support for SRH over the years.
“I have been supporting the Hyderabad team for 10 years now, right from when they were Deccan Chargers. And to show my support I paint myself in different avatars,” explains Janardhan.
While the die-hard cricket fan took many selfies and pictures with the Aussie star, his family treated Brett Lee to scrumptious Telangana
delicacies which included dal, chicken curry, vadiyalu (fries) and mangoes.
Amongst the many small discussions they shared over the hour, Brett Lee asked him if Shikhar Dhawan would make a 50. Janardhan being a hardcore fan of Shikhar, said yes, to which Brett Lee twirled his moustache and did the iconic thoda kottu, making the onlookers clap hard.
“It feels like a dream, I never thought that my 10 years of passion for cricket will take this turn! My family is also so happy, Brett Lee even complimented my wife’s cooking and called her ‘sundar ladki’,” quips Janardhan.