KARACHI: With no control of his legs after childhood polio, Muhammad Ayub would crawl on the grass to play cricket during his school years in the early 1990s. Still determined to do sports, two decades later he started designing special wheelchairs that make it possible.
Born in Mirpur Khas in Pakistan's southeast Sindh province, Ayub, now 37, moved to Karachi in 1999, where he would attend Shifa School for Special Education.
"In those days there was no concept of wheelchairs for sportsmen. We were away from the concept of wheelchair. We would play while crawling on the grass," he told Arab News at his home in the city's Korangi area last week.
Ayub and other Shifa Shcool students would try using normal wheelchairs, but barriers persisted.
"We played a lot but would always face difficulty in playing. We would face problems in moving the bat and blowing. The hand would touch (the handle) while moving.”
It was only in 2013, when he saw someone using a custom-made sports wheelchair and was sure that his athletic dreams would now come true, until he learnt that it cost Rs15,000 ($94), a sum he could not afford.
But giving up was not an option for Ayub. He said: "I thought if they could make it, then I could also make it!"
After six months, with a budget of Rs7,000, he made a sports wheelchair which immediately made the rounds on social media when he posted its photo.
"I got orders from Ghotki, Islamabad and Lahore. They are still using those wheelchairs,” he said.
In 2017, when the Pakistan Tennis Federation decided to introduce wheelchair tennis, it also turned to Ayub to make them for disabled players.
"We had four wheelchairs so Para Sports Pakistan secretary Dr. Nadia Razzaq helped us and introduced some people to us, who were already in the field. Muhammad Ayub was one of them,” Khalid Rehmani, vice president of the federation, told Arab News.

Ayub made "excellent" sports wheelchairs, he said, and they are regularly used by the federation’s disabled members.
While he was determined to overcome physical barriers to pursue his dreams and also be financially independent, Ayub, who works for the Cantonment Board Clifton, knows that many others need support.
According to Human Rights Watch, estimates of the number of people living with disabilities in Pakistan wildly vary from 3.3 million to 27 million.
With his skills, Ayub is willing to help as much as he can.
"I am disabled and if someone needs a wheelchair, I can make one for him without taking any benefit," he said. "This way, my special brothers will be helped out and my heart will also be contented."