The Gods of All Things??

Bishen Singh Bedi, that gruff and wonderfully entertaining doyen of classical spin bowling in India, sounded almost gleeful in this morning's papers, when commenting about how the world record for the highest opening stand in cricket is still intact.

His article contains a brief line on how Sehwag was not aware of who Vinoo Mankad and Pankaj Roy were. Perhaps therein, he concludes, "lies justice well delivered". True, true. Or, wait a minute- did he just say that one's ability to break records should be directly linked to one's knowledge of the Game's Great and Glorious Past???

Now, I'm all for knowing about cricket history and lore and so forth. I could spend hours with a well written book on cricket, reading about the Victor Trumpers and the Mushtaq Alis. But, thats a personal choice. I learn about cricket history because I am interested in it.

So, why should the members of our team be expected to have a comprehensive knowledge of cricket history? If they are interested in it, thats good for them, but if they aren't, let them be! Trying to put down people, and saying that they dont deserve certain records because they weren't aware of those records is a bit too much, isn't it?

I could go on and on, but the point, I hope, has been made- the cricketers are here to do a job, i.e. play well for the country. Delighting in their not being able to break a record, because they dont "respect their elders enough to go and find out all about them" is, I think, stretching it too far. Think about it- do we expect our players to be Gods of All Things?