Monday 4 August 2008

Entering the Dragon: Doosra takes Olympic break

Decks were cleared some six months back and here I’m off to my date with the Dragon. It’s official, for the next 20-0dd days cricket would take the proverbial backseat in my scheme of things.

Beijing beckons.

So, I would not rave about Mendis’ bag of tricks, marvel at Sehwag’s apparent brainlessness, rue Dravid’s comatose batting, ridicule county cricket or lampoon Lalit Modi.

Instead, my focus would be on how much punch Akhil Kumar can pack in the ring, if Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s gun goes off for glory again and if Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi can create that old magic to finish on the podium.

And I would love to see Sania Mirza proving she is more than just the Czarina of Foofaraw. And hope Anju Bobby George will rise to the occasion, both literally and in the true sense of the term.

A medal might be daydreaming but I would want the women’s 4x400m relay team to give others a good run for their money and medal and plead to Monika Devi, lone Indian weightlifter, that we surely don’t want another doping stigma.

Thanks to a watchmaker, I’m also set to meet the James Bond girls, Cindy Crawford, Alexander Popov and Ian ‘Thorpedo’ – that missing link between man and fish. I guess it makes a heady concoction and retaining sanity would probably my biggest challenge.

So, friends, Romans and countrymen, please bear with me and come back again. I’m not sure if I can post – about Olympics if not cricket – before August 26 but don’t desert me. See you all.