Great birthdays

Todays the birthday of two great men Sir Gary Sobers and Sachin Dev Burman (his 100th to boot according to The Hindu).

The former is arguably the greatest all rounder to ever play the game of cricket while the latter was one of Indians all time great music directors. A curious co-incidence is the fact that one of the best batsmen of my times Sachin Tendulkar is named after Sachin Dev Burman.

First Sir Gary Sobers, 8000 odd runs at 58 and 235 wickets at an average of 34 says something about this master of the game. He is one of the players chosen in Bradmans XI of the best players the Don has seen play and fills the crucial all rounders slot along with another of my favourite cricketers Keith Miller. Sir Gary got 90 votes out of 100 for the five Wisden cricketers of the century second only to the incomparable Don who got all 100(nothin less was expected from him).

But then Sir Gary was more Keith Miller than the Don. Probably his best innings was the 254 that he played against the Australians while playing for the World XI. In the first 3 innings he was something of a bunny against Dennis Lillee. He didnt earn any sympathy from Lillee by bowling short to him in the second match's first innings at the MCG. Lillee is supposed to have said "That little bastard, I will show him ... I haven't really bowled at him yet'." What followed the next day in the second innings was pure vintage Sobers, he just thrashed them. 254 superbly compiled runs which led him to remark : "Every attacking shot went to the boundary and Dennis, as inexperienced as he was then, was bowling too short." There is one shot that will always remain etched in my memory (courtesy all those Saturday special couloumns that I would read in The Hindu by Nirmal Sekhar and co.) a yorker to which most batsman would have thought of defending off the front foot to a pacer of Lillees pace (Abdul Razzaq found out too late yesterday against Steve Harmison of not going forward) just lent back and sent it crashing into the long off fence. Lillees views "went down in my follow-through to try to stop it; by the time I was down, I was looking back and the ball had hit the boundary fence and bounced back. I have never witnessed a shot of such power and grace. I thought to myself, `We are in for some,'".

The Dons comments: "Having seen all the players of the last 50 years, I believe that Sobers' was the greatest exhibition of batting seen in Australia. I have seen nothing equal to it in this country."

He also commited some blunders mostly as a captain, declaring against England setting them a target of 200 in 165 mins resulting in a loss. But then thats the way he played his cricket, for him it was just a sport and there was no fun in no result test matches.

Heres a much better account of the meastro : To Sir With Love

What can one talk about a musician of the calibre of Sachin Dev Burman, well all one needs to do is watch Bandini to realise his mastery, suffice it to say that each composition just kept getting better as the movie went on and listening to "O Re Maajhi" I was transformed into some other dimension, a higher state of living. I will leave the rest to my Musician Friend.