Sunday Club Revisited

Faisal Shariff

The busy Race Course Road, in Bangalore, was buzzing with activity when a bunch of commandos stalled the traffic, just outside the Taj West End Hotel.

A closer look at the 'commandos' yielded surprising results: they were none other than Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, and Ajit Agarkar.

Turns out, it was John Wright at work again -- this time, working towards bringing the team members closer together.

To this end, Wright invited -- and when Wright 'invites', you do it or else -- the probables to divide themselves into four groups. Each group was then asked to get their heads together, and come up with a skit which they would then enact in various locations around the hotel and surroundings, and videotape.

And so the teams led by Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and Saurav Ganguly thought out their skits, performed them, and aired them, to much merriment from the rest of the team members.

Anything was fair game -- thus, Yuvraj Singh imitated John Wright, and a couple of others did a hilarious take on Harbhajan's ability to mutilate the Queen's English.

The 10-minute blockbusters were screened at a special get-together the same evening, followed by the 'Oscars'.

Andrew Leipus was installed as the judge -- and the physio gave Team Dravid two awards, for best film and best performance. Yuvraj Singh won the best actor award, while Shiv Sundar Das was adjudged best 'actress'.

“I hope that the blokes enjoyed themselves," Wright said.

And just by the way, this is not a first for Indian cricket. Almost three decades ago, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi came up with the concept of the Sunday Club, for the national team.

A new 'president' was appointed each Sunday, and on that day, he ruled the roost and called the shots. He could ask the bunch to do anything at all -- the more outrageous the better. And the players had to do whatever it was.

Recently, Karsan Ghavri was recalling some of those episodes -- like the time Kirmani, as president, ordered that everyone come down to dinner wearing wicket-keeping gloves, or another occasion when Ghavri himself had the entire team dressed as women (apparently, the way Ghavri told it, the team hotel ran out of oranges on that day).

Bishen Singh Bedi picked up on the idea and continued it, during his tenure as captain. And then 'professionalism' entered the sport. And the spirit of amateurism was replaced by an every man for himself attitude.

It took a foreigner to reintroduce the national team to what was once a regular practise. And not everyone is happy about it, either. “I am sick of seeing my team-mates faces through the day," said one. "I wake up, I see him; at the nets I see him; we go back to the room and in the evening for tea I see him. Then it is dinner time and I see him again. Its too much!”

“Can’t please them all,” shrugs John Wright. “As long as the team as a whole benefits from it and enjoys it, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Fun and games is fine enough, but the emphasis on discipline meanwhile remains. A senior player has been allocated the job of collecting fines -- if a player is late for breakfast, lunch or dinner he has to shell out, if he is late for the team bus he is fined, if he forgets to wear his cap he has to reach for his cheque book...

They've collected around Rs 10,000 thus far -- and the goal, apparently, is to collect enough to buy a ghetto-blaster for the team to freak out on.

They haven't yet gotten to the stage where one guy locks the other in the toilet just so he will be late, and have to ante up... but hey, there's time yet!