Source: espncricinfo.com
It was a small room with seven occupants - all from different parts of the subcontinent - braving Dubai's oppressive heat and humidity to try and make a living. In March 2016, an eighth joined them. He was KM Asif, a 23-year-old from the southern Indian state of Kerala.
Cricket was Asif's first love, but financial constraints had forced him to shelve his dreams of playing cricket as a career to take up work as a storekeeper at a beverage bottling plant. His room-mates couldn't have known that two years on, Asif would have MS Dhoni's arm around his shoulders and Shane Watson egging him on to bowl as fast as he could, in the yellow of the Chennai Super Kings in the IPL.