7 potential alternative careers in cricket

Whenever they speak, some cricketers can be quite thought-provoking. For instance, your first thought after hearing Player A could be a wishful one – wish the proverbial cat had gotten his tongue and was not sighted since.

Some cricketers can also make a believer out of you. The first sentence has barely left Player B's lips and you start believing that human tongue functions independently of human brain.

And then there are certain cricketers, who help you understand things around. Like exactly what thought went behind adding a MUTE button to all remote controls.

But then there are others who make interesting reading and from whatever I listened/read over the last few days, I have no doubt that the seven cricketers below would have made quite a good name in other professions. Cricket's-gain-is-god-knows-what's-loss stuff, I mean.

Sample the men and their utterances.

1. Miandad the Microbiologist: "T20 cricket is a virus". (Tendulkar, clearly from the other school of thought, felt T20 was dessert. Talk about one man’s meat being another man’s poison.)

2. Dr Sunil Gavaskar, MBBS: "The way they (Indian fielders) are going about it (dropping catches), despite the cold weather I doubt if they will be able to catch a cold."

3. Adam Parore the Cardiologist: "Jesse Ryder may have the longest lower abdominal strain in history - someone with a heart transplant would have been back quicker."

4. Wayne Parnell the Actuary: "It’s (the $610,000 hole he created in Daredevils’ pocket) a huge sum of money!"

5. Matthew Hayden, Oz High Commissioner to India: "I have been welcomed into the bosom of India as a brother." (Sourav Ganguly now calls him Hayden da, one hears).

6. Lalit Modi the Environmentalist: "For every effigy burnt I will go and plant 200 trees".

7. Jamie Siddons the Proctologist: "His (Sehwag’s) comments (that Bangladesh is an ordinary side) might bite him on his bum in a few years' time."

The height of Ponting's fear

(Tendulkar, Lara - the pocket dynamoes)

When he is not talking about things like on-field etiquette, sportsman spirit and how-to-behave-in-a-pub, Ricky Ponting talks sense. At worst, his words can be thought-provoking.

Punter's most recent observation is that hulks like Kevin Pietersen and Matthew Hayden are overshadowing pint-sized bats like him, Sachin Tendulkar and Brain Lara . He fears cricket is all set to become a game of the towering players and players of his stature might feel like dwarf among giants.

Incidentally, Ponting's words apparently vindicate the recent BBC-commissioned survey which attempts to shatter the popular myth that little men are more aggressive, a notion that gained popularity since a 5'6" Napoleon Bonaparte picked a fight with rest of Europe.

Researchers claimed the 'Napoleon complex' or 'Short Man Syndrome' is in fact a myth and now Ponting airs the same view.

Since Don Bradman picked up a bat and the game was graced by such run-machines like Sunil Gavaskar, Javed Miandad, Tendulkar, Lara and Ponting , it never felt -- the bigger, the better. On the contrary, these big little men strode like giants despite their short height.

Interestingly, Thomas T Samaras, a Director and Senior Researcher at Reventropy Associates in San Diego, and his associates have published a number of papers in scientific and medical journals on the positive aspects of shorter height and they claim little men have faster reaction times, greater ability to accelerate body movements, stronger muscles in proportion to body weight, greater endurance, and the ability to rotate the body faster.

Naturally, shorter people excel as gymnasts, divers, skiers, martial artists, rock climbers, figure skaters, rodeo riders, soccer players and long distance runners and within their weight classes, they are excellent wrestlers, boxers, and weight lifters too!

Personally, this "growing" trend does not bother me either. At 5'8", I find enough solace in the facts that shorter people are less likely to break a hip from falling and die in auto crashes! That explains why I prefer to remain so "down-to-earth", at least physically.

Pak Wants Woolmer Beyond World Cup

Things have really changed for better in Pakistan Cricket Board. The PCB, which once swore by its hire-and-fire motto and dropped coaches and captains like hot potatoes after every alternate tournament, is thinking of extending coach Bob Woolmer’s contract beyond the World Cup.

Woolmer’s list of admirers maybe bereft of names like Imran Khan or Javed Miandad but more importantly, it features PCB Chairman Nasim Ashraf, who is currently with the World Cup team in the Windies (meanwhile, reports claim cricketers are not liking his presence around, finding it’s too close for their comfort). Ashraf has full confidence in Woolmer and he would like to see the journeyman coach continue with the team even after the World Cup.

Born in Kanpur, veteran of 19 Tests in English colours, coaching South Africa and now Pakistan – Woolmer has been nothing short of a cricket nomad. But his Pakistan sojourn seems going to be a bit longer than he had actually thought.