Five months ago, I took a small step to give back to cricket.
As I look back today, I realize how much that moment still inspires me, and I felt it deserved a place here on my personal blog.
Cricket has always been a big and special part of my life. That’s why I often say — cricket is not just a sport for me, it’s much more than that.
Whether as a captain, a player, a mentor, or a leader — every lesson I’ve learned on the field has shaped me. From winning and losing, sharing laughs, building friendships, handling criticism, performing under pressure, staying fit, to helping build cricket communities, spreading positivity, and even resolving conflicts — all of it came through cricket. And I’ve been fortunate to carry these lessons into both my personal and professional life.
As a small gesture of gratitude to the sport, I was fortunate to donate cricket kits — 2–3 bats, 2 sets of stumps, a pack of balls, and a kit bag with a lock for each kit — to the schools in my village. The same village where I played countless matches growing up.
It was by watching Ravi Dada (my elder brother) that I picked up the bat for the very first time. I remain truly grateful to him for being such a big inspiration in my cricketing journey.
My hope is simple — that some boys and girls from the village will be inspired to pick up the bat or ball and experience the same joy, discipline, and camaraderie that cricket gave me.
To all of you who continue to be part of my cricket ecosystem — thank you. Your presence makes the journey even more meaningful
Vikas Shitole is a Senior Tech Lead at VMware by Broadcom, VCF division, India, where he leads system test efforts—including scale, stress, and resiliency testing—and drives product quality across VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), Broadcom’s flagship private cloud platform.
He is an AI and Kubernetes enthusiast, and is passionate about VMware customers and automation around vSphere and VCF. Vikas has been honored as a vExpert for 12 consecutive years (2014–2025) for his sustained technical contributions and community leadership.
He is the author of two VMware Flings, holds multiple industry certifications, and is one of the top contributors to the VMware API Sample Exchange, where his automation scripts have been downloaded over 50,000 times.
Vikas has shared his expertise as a speaker at international conferences such as VMworld Europe and VMworld USA, and was selected as an official VMworld 2018 blogger. He also served as lead technical reviewer for the Packt-published books vSphere Design and VMware Virtual SAN Essentials.
Beyond tech, Vikas is a dedicated cricketer, cycling enthusiast, and a lifelong learner in fitness and nutrition, with the personal goal of completing an Ironman 70.3