It's just not Sreesanth's time

You are seen as Indian cricket's trouble child, the prodigal son, the enfant terrible. Your fist pumps to tell yourself that you are the best are talked of more than your wrist, which can send down deliveries with the seam bolt upright, shaping away from the batsmen, a rare ability that ought to make you one of the best anyway. You are out more than in, your dance is talked of more than your bowling, and then suddenly the selectors punt on you.

You bowl a beautiful spell on a dead pitch to win your team a Test, you feel you are bowling as well as you have bowled, and then you get swine flu. You make a quick recovery, setting yourself up for a Test again, and on cue a side strain becomes a stress fracture and you are out again. You lose your Test place, struggle in the IPL because Twenty20 is not really your game, and you are not picked for the national limited-overs sides. You disappear off the news radar, train hard, play a lot of local games, regain fitness, and plot another comeback.

Just before the series starts, your lead fast man is injured, you are certain to play in the XI, and you think of bowling the first over again. Just before your first net session on the tour, you injure yourself in the warm-up. You bowl six deliveries in the nets before the pain gets too much, you get an MRI done, and are out again for close to four weeks. Sreesanth, this is just not your time.

"I was looking forward to this one," Sreesanth said minutes before returning to India. "The moment I came to know Zaheer bhai is not around, I thought 'wow it is a great opportunity for me'. After 2006, bowling the first over was a dream come true again.

"Also Sri Lanka is like Kerala, conditions and weather wise. I was not worried about the heat or the humidity or anything. I was in Cochin also for one month, training hard, because I knew I might get a call-up. I was completely prepared for the series.

"I had corrected my eyesight too, I don't wear specs anymore. It was Muralitharan's last match too, would have been a historic match. I ended up missing it. Some things you just cannot control."

Try as he might to sound philosophical about it, Sreesanth couldn't hide his disappointment. "I played a lot of club games," he said of his time out of the limelight. "I was at the NCA, training, bowling in the nets, I was getting through a very good workout. For six months I had no injuries, suddenly this happens. Yesterday I must have done something odd in the warm-up."

Last night, when Sreesanth awaited the results of the MRI while the rest of the world was immersed in the football World Cup final, was a difficult one. "I was worried last night," he said. "But I had a good conversation with Paddy [Upton, mental conditioning coach]. You can't worry about spilt milk, next time keep it in a proper container."

Sreesanth is now headed to the NCA, back to the gym and a new specialist, trying to figure out another way back. "Thank god it happened in the season, so I can actually play properly," Sreesanth said. "We have KSCA league coming up, and lots of other games before the next series comes up. I am looking forward to playing as many games as possible and come back."

It was against the same opposition, Sri Lanka, that Sreesanth revived his career in Kanpur last year. He was hoping to do something similar here, but his second day on the tour was good enough to end it. "I had a knee injury for quite a while, but it never bothered me," Sreesanth said. "Any fast bowler has got a niggle here and there, but when you play for the country, when you do something you love, you don't worry about the pain. Yesterday was different. After the warm-up, my knee was getting locked. I couldn't bear the pain.

"Doesn't happen to everybody," he said. "I was the chosen one, like I was the chosen one in the [Twenty20] World Cup, taking that catch. I didn't complain then. I can't complain now, 'Why me?'"