The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Sporting gesture is the order of the day

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Oct 16, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Sporting gesture is the order of the day

By Vijay Parthasarathy

CHENNAI, OCT. 15. Shane Keith Warne finally does what we've waited ages for him to do. He grabs the record for maximum Test wickets when he has Irfan Pathan caught at slip — but not before the night watchman has clobbered him, most insolently, over mid-wicket for a 6.

Life gets harder for the tourists as Virender Sehwag tears into the attack with the appetite of a rather famished Robinson Crusoe. Glenn McGrath, in particular, gets smashed around.

Just goes to emphasise that fundamental truth of life: on some days you are the pigeon; on others, the statue.

*****

Rahul Dravid ignores that ghastly cliche — off the field we are the best of friends but on it, we are competitors — and congratulates Warne the moment he arrives at the wicket to replace Pathan.

Later, as he fields near the boundary ropes, Warne, ever the irrepressible showman, turns around and doffs his hat stylishly and waves at the crowd that cheered him when he nabbed wicket number 533.

"Sehwag congratulated me, and the entire Indian side too, later," says an evidently touched Warne, at the post-play press conference.

*****

Umpire David Shepherd has had to have five stitches on the middle finger on his right hand, after an accident. Deep-Throat informs this writer that Shepherd, a right-hander, apparently slipped and fell in the sauna-bath last night, and today, he is finding it a little hard to replace the walkie-talkie behind his back.

Fortunately, going by the current trend, he won't have to use that hand too often over the next couple of days — players are walking if they think they have copped it.

*****

Michael Kasprowicz is another one, who is on his best boy-scout behaviour; he bows down before the crowd and does a neat namaste some 20 times.

But the crowd that chanted "Warnie, Warnie" a little while earlier, is a little confused: what do you make of a name that fits a `c' and a `z', most ingeniously, next to each other? It, however, gets around that problem with some good, old-fashioned bellowing.

*****

We've had a decently large crowd over the past two days, given the fact over the years, television has changed a lot of things; and also you would expect the biggest numbers on Sunday. But most of these people who have come to watch the game are men.

"Cricket is a manly game," shrugs Vanathi, 18. The engineering student, who professes to be a huge Dravid fan, says she's actively interested in sport.

"I play tennis myself, and I really like cricket. In fact, I like cricket so much that I'm here today even though I have an exam tomorrow."

Nirmala, 58, is a cricket enthusiast, who has watched every Test played here in the past 20 years.

"It's always better to watch it at the stadium, than on TV. For me, it's like a picnic," this Tendulkar fan says.

"I used to play basketball and volleyball when I was younger, and even now, I still play badminton daily. Women just don't play enough sports these days. It's quite sad."

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