Honoring greats - correctly

The post-game ceremony featured a little item that had much potential, but which went wrong. The local cricket association decided to honor Dilip Sardesai with a little cash award (I forget the amounts, one check was for Rs/5000). Ok, so far so good. Unfortunately, no biographical information was given to Atherton (I very much doubt Michael knew who Sardesai is), and no one said anything about Sardesai's contribution to Indian cricket. Dilip walked up, accepted his check, no quick words for him on the mike (I guess the producers had no time), and that was it. As far as the crowd was concerned, it was just some old geezer rolled out from the Senior Citizen's home. If only a little bio-sketch had been read out, the crowd might have learned that Sardesai grabbed the intiative for India in the 1971 series win against the West Indies. How? Well, by scoring a double-hundred in the first test at Kingston, and ensuring that the West Indies followed-on for the first time. As many cricket writers noted, it shocked the Windies and gave India an advantage they never let go in that series, which they won 1-0, thanks to their win at Port-of-Spain in the next test. Sardesai's contribution to that win? A century in the first innings, which secured a vital lead, while building a vital 96 run partnership with a debutant called Sunil Gavaskar.

And I wish we could have been spared the smarmy little corporate ceremony at the end to announce the Abu Dhabi cup or whatever it is that the BCCI has come up with in an effort to squeeze more money out of the players. Lalit Modi sounded like an insufferable corporate drone; crikey, its going to be painful putting up with this lot!