Testing times

The Border-Gavaskar trophy has been very interesting so far, largely due to the fact that India won the second test so comprehensively. But just when you thought that this series was going really well and that we had gotten past the ugliness of playing the game in 'bad' spirit (last year when India toured Australia) we have some news (breaking news I might add) about an Adam Gilchrist's opinion about Tendulkar (supposedly) on the much-media abused Harbhajan-Symonds fiasco. This is an excerpt dug out of Gilly's autobiography True Colours. What was the point of this exercise? Was the temptation of dragging Gilchrist (the rare gentleman of modern cricket) through the mud too hard to resist? Or was it some misplaced idolism of the God of Indian cricket? Or was the series played a li'l too peacefully for everyone's comfort? Methinks we have gotten so used to sensationalism, it's hard now to not to hype otherwise inconsequential details so as to spice up the game.

But really, there was no need. For anyone who loves this game, Gilly's book excerpt about Tendulkar is an entirely unnecessary & inconsequential information leading upto the third and crucial test of the series. Australians are considered even more dangerous when they're wounded. In such a scenario one would think, we wouldn't let something as trivial as a book excerpt get under our skins. We're only egging a very important player from the Indian line-up to focus his thought and energy on something that's not related to the game.

Thankfully, Tendulkar has been around long enough not to be affected, I beg your pardon, not to let his game be affected by such controversies. A fact he proved with his masterly performance today. True, he will be very disappointed to miss out on a century - he certainly looked in good touch to get it. Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to play for tea after all. Either way if India do well in this test (and they are at the moment at 245/3 looking strong) then it'll be no thanks to the media who definitely did all they could to take the players mind off the game. Honestly the term, 'a welcome distraction' doesn't apply to all situations. Indeed, right after India wins a test match, especially against Australia, any controversial discussion not related to the current series or players is an extremely 'unwelcome' distraction (In bad taste too!).