The England team touring Pakistan has said how much they have bonded as a team on this trip. It’s easier for teams to bond on overseas trips if they are traveling to places where there’s not much of entertainment or at least the kind of entertainment that they are used to. In such a scenario it’s not unknown for all members of the team to get together in one room and do things which they normally wouldn’t do if at home. So there could be games played or stories told or just pranks and tricks played on each other to liven up the day or as we say in India ‘to time pass.’
A rain delayed match also allows the teams to do pretty much the same kind of horsing around and it invariably brings the team together, so the rains in Madras will give the Indians, who have been traveling back and forth across the country rather hectically during the one-day series versus Sri Lanka and South Africa, the chance to let their hair down and do the normal kind of things young people get up to. There will be those who have high levels of energy and who will want an outlet for all the pent-up energy and while some of it will no doubt be spent in the gym to ensure there are no stiff muscles, a great part of it will be waiting to be exhaled.
Ian Botham was at his most dangerous when there was rain and he had nothing to do for then the prankster in him would come to the fore and all his teammates had to be very watchful indeed. He would think nothing of nailing someone’s boots to the floor or putting the shoe whitener on some poor souls dark trousers or burning someone with a spoon dipped in hot tea. His pranks were endless and everybody was petrified when it rained because they knew there would be no respite or rest with Ian in the dressing room.
From the Indian point of view, the rain delay is used by some to catch up on their reading or as is the fad now to listen to music and some who carry DVDs will see those. The more serious ones will try and see some of the previous footage of the games, so that they can improve but if the game is delayed the whole day then there will be some who will also take a nap. There is invariably a joker in every team, who will keep the boys laughing with his jokes or mimicry and in this team Yuvraj is the mimic. The manner in which he mimics his teammates, as well as the others, is hilarious to say the least. He does a marvelous imitation of Kaif at the crease or Ganguly or Sachin though he is of course very respectful of the latter and has to be heavily coaxed by Sachin himself to copy him. During our time we had Sandeep Patil who was a great mimic and storyteller, so much so that we used to call him Salim-Javed after the then famous duo of film writers. There was also Madan Lal and the one and only ‘Vishy’, who with their sense of humor used to bring the house down. But nobody, absolutely nobody, compares to Ashok “Kaka” Mankad, who was the king in keeping the dressing room laughing and the players having an ache in the sides doing so.
With three days washed out there is no chance of a result in the Test. What this enforced rest will have done is, give the guys just the recharging that they needed after a hectic travel schedule up and down the country. The bowlers especially Irfan Pathan and Agarkar would appreciate it most, as it gives them a chance to take care of some niggles that new ball bowlers pick up.
The batsmen too will have had the opportunity to see their dismissals especially against the Lankans in the one-dayers and try and work those out. Make no mistake, even if there has been no play at all, the time will have been used most productively to get a better team spirit and understanding of each other. Pity, the cameras weren’t inside for what one could have seen would have been great, if not better entertainment than the one on the field.
