Off Stump

I'm a big fan of Rob Steen's writing (and envious of his career as a writer and sports journalism lecturer ;-)) and his latest piece on Cricinfo illustrates the mix of cricketing insight and screenplay style writing that is his hallmark. This particular segment I identified with very much - " There's something almost shamefully proprietorial about this sort of affection. Even if you aren't the first to discover the wonders of a musician, a band, an actor, writer or sportsman, catch them in the first flush of fruition and they have a stake in your heart - and you an emotional stake in their future. You urge them up the charts or bestseller lists, rejoice in every goal, run or ace, ache at every duck or double-fault, each success a dose of self-affirmation, every failure a gobful of humble pie." I've found this to be true across sports for me, whether it was Carl Hooper, Steve Waugh, Frankie Fredericks, Roberto Donadoni and Richard Krajicek back in the

April 2nd and that shot must seem like a world away for MS Dhoni these days. Though given how calm and collected he appears to be, the Indian skipper is probably good at ignoring the excessive media bashing around the team's recent performances. The old adage that a captain is only as good as his team has been driven home like never before and its amazing what a difference a span of six months can do. The XI that took the field in the final one-dayer against England had just four players in common with the XI that became world champions in Mumbai on April 2nd. Given the masses of injuries both during the Test series and the one-day leg, and the collective loss of form/confidence of several players (Dravid and Praveen Kumar being the main exceptions), it would have actually been near miraculous if India had managed to salvage anything from the tour after the loss in the second Test match at Trent Bridge against a very efficient England side on top of their game. And as this fan s