A SIGNATURE IN WILLOW

“Grandpa, what do you do, when people all around you do not believe in your abilities?” asks young Rahul.
I recited to him a line from my very favorite poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling… “when all people are losing their heads and blaming it on you..”
“Have you ever seen such a thing happening?” he asks again.
“Yes,” and then I depicted before him ball by ball about whatever transpired in the small picturesque town of Potechfstroom in South Africa. How the phoenix desperately tried to resurrect himself from demons internal and external, known and unknown, doubts and malice, short pitched and full length stuff. How he tried to let his actions speak.


That’s how I dream to describe today the 7th of December 2006 long after I am retired. Although not the finest craftsmanship, but undoubtedly the dogged spirit of not throwing in the towel, simply because I do not carry it on a cricket field. Hats off to the human mind, hats off to the underdog stature… Hats off to the spirit of the game we hate to love and love to hate