One in a million reason why Brand Sachin still rules...

You all know that I like & adore this man as much as Thalaivar. Happened to read this incident involving Sachin from this blog. Thought I should not miss this and so posting this here. This minor incident speaks volumes about the man's soft-spoken-ness, one of the infinite reasons which make me & this whole country of ours, a billion strong fan club of him.

Whitney was bowling to the youngster (Sachin) in a county game in England in 1990, shortly after the Mumbai batsman had made his Test debut. ‘‘Sachin was on 99 and I bowled him with an inswinging yorker. But it was a no-ball.’’ No doubt grateful for the timely reprieve, Tendulkar duly reached his century off the next delivery. As he completed the single to bring up three figures, the Indian exchanged a brief glance with the bowler.

Whitney still chuckles at the memory. He thought Tendulkar was going to sledge him. Instead, he said something that startled the bowler even more than a four-letter word. ‘‘He said to me, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Mister Whitney’.’’

Reproduced from the Indian Express story, here.

As India embark on a challenging tour of Pakistan, here's my 2 cents worth preview about the series - one thing I am sure is that this one will be a more keenly & fiercely contested series unlike the last one when India just whipped Pakistan. Their batting which was in complete disarray the last time around is now looking rock solid with Inzamam probably in the best form of his career. And their bowling which lacked direction & purpose is at its fiery best. Indians have their task cut out - put on as many runs as possible on the board bcos on paper, our bowling attack looks pedestrian, at best. I would prefer Zaheer in the line-up over Agarkar bcos the latter is too inconsistent a bowler to command a place in the test team. As long as one of Harbhajan or Kumble is at their menacing best, we should be able to take care off the Pakistanis. As far as the batting is concerned, I am putting my money on Laxman to come up big with sizeable contributions from Sachin and Dravid with the odd burst from Sehwag. But for all this to happen, Jaffer or Gambhir (whoever is going to open with Sehwag) should do the job what Akash Chopra did in Australia during India’s last series Down Under. But for all we know, like in the Sri Lankan series, it might come down to contributions from folks like Pathan & Dhoni that might well end up being the difference between winning and losing.

But the most interesting match-up that I look forward to see is something that is not on the field but off the field - the battle of the minds between Greg Chappell and Bob Woolmer, arguably the shrewdest cricket coach in the world. India has been experimenting a lot ever since Chappell took over and it would be interesting to see what he comes up with in this crucial series or if he will even attempt doing it, given the high stakes that are involved. (As a side note, he talks about the magnitude of the series here. That should give an idea of what he thinks of the series). Bob Woolmer has brought about a tremendous turnaround in Pakistan's cricketing fortunes and his tenure out there will be remembered only if he helps them get over their biggest foe.

My prediction for the series - a 2-1 victory for the Indians in the test series and a 3-2 victory for the Pakistanis in the ODI series. Here's wishing Team India and Sachin the best of luck.