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It's cricket's 'silly season' where nothing much is going on and the media is forced to create stories out of thin air. One Delhi reporter for example has made a cottage industry churning out stories about the various misdeeds of the local cricket authorities! For a couple of weeks last month we were fed on a forced diet of speculation about who would be the next coach of the Indian cricket team.
Just as well the Board surprised one and all by the quick replacement of John Wright with Greg Chappell.
The charade of getting Chappell, Mohinder Amarnath, Desmond Haynes and Tom Moody to make their presentations in Delhi was covered breathlessly by the various 24-hour TV channels, chasing the four candidates in and out of the lobby and lifts.
Then just when that story had died down with word that Chappell was the chosen one (yes, delivered live on TV), we now have that old chestnut of a story, good old match-fixing, being churned out all over again. Bookies are singing like canaries and naming the usual suspects who are being asked the same questions and are giving the same answers. It's like déjà vu all over again!
Not to be left behind in this mad scramble for headlines is the sorry tale of an ex-captain ironically enough nicknamed Tiger. 'Tiger' Pataudi now informs us that he is old and ill but not too old and ill apparently to go hunting. For some at least the good old days of the Raj will never die out (unless of course they find themselves on the wrong end of the law).
Interesting though to read in his autobiography (from 1968) that the first time he pulled the trigger was when he was six-years-old and the first tiger that Tiger apparently bagged was just 10 years later! Talk about 'catchin' them young'.
There's no international cricket for India till late July and while most of the boys in blue are putting up their feet, four of them have decided to try their hand at county cricket.
So even while speculation is still rife on whether the incumbent (or is he?) will keep his job or get his ban lifted again, he is being followed round England by his loyal band of Kolkata reporters.
If it's breaking news when 'Dada' scores a century for Glamorgan versus Kent in the county championship (that too, the second division), then you can imagine the poor man's plight!
And a chance remark from new coach Chappell (he will eventually learn to keep his lips sealed) that Virender Sehwag is captaincy material has the opening batsman having to fend off questions galore on his ambitions.
Hey, it's just over a month before the Indian team is back on the international trail. Some of us can hardly wait!



Gulu Ezekiel is a cricket writer. Visit him at GuluEzekiel.com


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