No league for old men

As the cricket fans get excited about getting the first feel of the city-based league with international stars and get blissfully lost in their dilemma to be a Knight Rider or a Daredevil, it’s quite unfashionable to speak about [Nilesh] Kulkarni. Or say, Amol Muzumdar, Amit Bhandari, Gagan Khoda, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Sairaj Bahutule and Shitanshu Kotak. These are the stars; who for more than a decade have turned up for their respective state, city or region but their efforts haven’t been significantly applauded, rewarded or even recognised. T-shirts with their names were never seen at retail outlets, there were no promotional videos made of their team, nor have they walked on to the field with a theme song on the public address system.

Interestingly, there is one team in the IPL that has a few old-timers. Bangalore Royal Challengers, on the advice of former Indian captain Rahul Dravid, have drafted in a few 30-plus domestic cricketers. Karnataka regulars Sunil Joshi, J Arun Kumar, R Vinay Kumar and Thilak Naidu are the rare domestic seniors in the IPL.