Games cricketers play...

I am not that a great fan of cricket...but while switching television channels, came across a news item on the Yuvraj-Steyn face-off in the ongoing test match with South Africa. Face-off? So what? It happens in all the games, not confined to cricket, you may say. Well, there's a point here. Earlier, these were rare instances for Indians, who used to have it only with Pak cricketers and even more seldom with others. Now, it is almost becoming a norm. Have Indian cricketers become more aggressive? Have they started converting a losing match into a draw, a drawing match into a winning one?? Well, I can't say anything on that. But, the trend suggests that the non-Indian cricketers become popular (notorious) here in India once they have an ugly spat with a popular Indian cricketer. Remember the Harbhajan-Symonds rift...and the IPL dollars Andrew Symonds got after that? Would he have got that kind of money, if he and Harbhajan hadn't fought?!!! Probably not. Without going into who-said-what-and-to-whom, this post looks at only the outcome of that event that happened in Australia. Andrew Symonds got almost double the money that Adam Gilchrist got, in fact the best pay among foreign players, even though there are numerous other better players than Symonds. Anyway, that, in itself, may not be a bad thing. Except for a Steve Waugh, who gets noticed for good things, there are not many cricketers (even Indian) who do such noble things and be in the news. Andrew Symonds chose the other end of the decency-spectrum to be in the news and got rewarded. Dale Steyn, it seems, is such a wannabe and is only following in the footsteps of the (not-so) great Andrew Symonds!!