Charity begins with Dravid

Ten years ago I remember telling a close friend of mine that unless I performed well in this Sharjah tournament, I would be out. While I was pressing the immediate need for avoiding late night parties in pursuit of some extra concentration, the friend seemed pretty bewildered.

“What do you mean by performance? You’re not playing,” he seemed surprised for eternity.

Over the years this has largely been the tragedy of the cricketing media (Read print). That they were asked to perform on a centre stage and yet issued a status which seemed marginally more than an a average. The photographers suffered little more as they didn’t have the luxury of those thousand words with which cricket writers could influence a situation with case. Great cricket photographers of course produced great pictures which got appreciated temporarily yet no one cared for them. Worse , barring a few no once remembered.


People would only recall a situation not the picture and in ninety nine percent cases won’t remember the photographers byline. This leads to situation where Javed Miandad imitating Kiran More at Sydney would be recalled but not the photographer’s name. An Imran Khan would keep the picture of praying inside New Zealand mosque in his private album but only a handful of us would remember that photograph was clicked by the ever enter-prising Suman Chatterjee. It is of little surprise that the photographer’s life after work got reduced to awful black and white stills.

It is extremely commendable that the team India members have come out to honor the unsung heroes of the cricketing media. It was known for hearts of steel on the ground, now for hearts of gold off the ground. The Schwag’s, the Sachin’s, the Ganguly’s. When Rahul Dravid was stalking off his shirt immediately after that incredible win at Mumbai and handing it over to his event’s organizing secretary that remained the best unlicked picture of all time. That in itself manifested the sprit of the great team India huddle. That we are all together in this great ocean called life.