The Hindu Business Line : Cricket, cricket & more cricket...

My uncle, living in Khar Road, is nearing 80 and still watches all the cricket beamed by sports channels. If India plays badly, which is often, he shouts and curses in Tamil or Malayalam. If one misses out on a match one has only to put in a call to get the details.

In many ways, he got me into cricket appreciation and sometimes took me to cricket matches at the Eden Gardens in the then Calcutta. For him, cricket is all about India winning and that has been a rare happening. He admires Aussies the most and particularly the old ones like Benaud and Alan Davidson. After watching the matches on TV he spends the mornings reading about them in the newspapers.

When Aussies won the Ashes at Perth he was on the line with, "Do you think anyone can beat them?" Sir Garfield Sobers, Viv Richards and Shane Warne as captain, will be the first three names in my World Cricket Test team from all the greats who have played with a straight bat or sent the stumps on a tango with an in-dipping yorker or a whizzing slow ball.

A few days from now Shane Warne will make his last walk to the pavilion upping his white sola hat to cheers from his home crowd. Some time ago, Benaud predicted Warne will cross 600 wickets easily. One did not believe him. Today, I do. Since the Ashes series started one has been up in the morning to watch the show on the TV and what a show it has been. At Adelaide on the last day, Warne beat Pietersen, standing slightly outside the leg stump, with a turner, which he failed to read. The swirling ball nipped the top of the leg stump and the bails dropped. Pietersen conceded the ways of the Master, a bit reluctantly.

At Perth, on the last day, Warne matched wits with Flintoff. He jagged the ball for it to curl in between pad and bat in search of the leg stump. Like always Warne, seemingly captured the critical moment to Australia's advantage. Then, the hollering leap, dance and appeal.

Being an Englishman, Ted Corbett had to write in The Hindu: "Warne may be the most successful bowler of all time - Bell's wicket was his 696th - but he cannot be allowed to continue with his continual assault on the umpire's credibility. He and Rudi Koertzen appear to get along famously at the end of each over whether or not Warne has been granted his wishes but these histrionics have nothing to do with the umpiring. It is all part of the Warne plan to unsettle the batsman and it is time he was stopped." It probably was Gavaskar who termed Englishmen whingers and it does fit Ted Corbett well. There have been many moments of imperfection.

Sidhu and then Tendulkar, famously at two one-days in Sharjah, refused to give the critical space for Warne to drop the ball. Sports, at its very best, does not make a perfect man or woman. It chips away at imperfections leaving the player just that bit away from perfection. Possibly, that is the riddle of sports. You can only be Warne. In his selected writings, D.T. Suzuki writes: "There is something, we must admit, in Zen that defies explanation, and to which no master however ingenious can lead his disciples through intellectual analysis." That could apply to Warne and more and less to McGrath, the fine Aussie pacer who will also walk away.

Warne is a ball of passion allowing the worst critic to wince and yet clap at the end of the day over a glass of beer. That's where Tendulkar and Lara miss out. Tendulkar tries his best to be always correct, his interviews are a bore and there is no red or green in him. It is all a depressing grey. Except when he bats, though in the last two years, his batting has also turned grey. Sourav is `unputdownable' as The Telegraph ad said. He has the zing in him to turn cricket into a football game with Zidane's brilliant butting thrown in.

Sourav is made differently and his going to South Africa has got the Indian blood racing. Greg Chappell and Dravid failed to get the team going. Sending Dilip Vengsarkar to South Africa was a sane decision as all the experiments (Irfan Pathan is today neither a bowler nor a batsman) have finally ended. A regular team has been put in place with most of the players happy with Dada around. After all, this Indian team is the creation of Dada and John Wright.

Again, one suspects Sreesanth would not have break-danced and stared without Dada behind it. Sreesanth comes from Kerala and Sourav from Bengal and the people of the two States have many things in common, including a thick dash of madness. Yet, it does not follow that this Indian team will lift the 2007 World Cup. The 2007 edition will be a Senior Citizens' game as most, if not all the teams, have faces and bodies over 30 years old. It just could be as boring as the recent World Cup soccer in Germany with tired legs tiringly kicking a football.

Hard to spot a young face today in the cricket fields of India. Many did not like it when Dilip Vengsarkar said he could not see any fresh cricket talent. That one thinks should be India's worry. One does not think the seniors in the Indian cricket team will quit on their own. They will always claim to have a couple of years left. Or will they do a Warne?