No happy returns for Mishra

The worst manner in which Amit Mishra who turned 27 yesterday would have wanted to celebrate his birthday was by not being named in India's playing eleven for their second Test against Sri Lanka.

No happy returns for Mishra
The worst manner in which Amit Mishra who turned 27 yesterday would have wanted to celebrate his birthday was by not being named in India's playing eleven for their second Test against Sri Lanka.

Leg-spinner Amit Mishra

Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened as the Indian team management decided to opt for left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha instead of Mishra, who last week in Ahmedabad conceded the maximum number of runs in an innings by a spinner in India.

But Mishra appeared to have taken the decision quite sportingly as he enthusiastically participated in all the pre-match and post-match rituals. And he did momentarily acknowledged the fans who wished him during the lunch interval when he walked over to the other side of the dressing room for an interview with the official television broadcaster of the series.

Grand welcome for Sachin
When Sachin Tendulkar walked on to the field with just about an hour left in the opening day's play, a sizeable crowdu00a0a surprise in an era of lukewarm response to Test cricket revelled in the moment, giving him a huge round of applause.

As the master has enters his third decade of international cricket, his aura has risen with each season. One wondered though that how many of the 25,000-odd people screaming his name would have remembered that 20 years ago on the very same day, Tendulkar raised his bat in Test cricket for the first time after scoring a fifty against Pakistan at Faisalabad.

Shukla's a popular name too
Indian Premier League head honcho Lalit Modi isn't the only Indian cricket administrator who draws applause from the crowds.

When the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association president Rajeev Shukla, walked outside the fence from the pavilion to the media enclosure at Green Park yesterday, he was cheered from every stand that he passed.

A group of spectators from one stand were screaming 'Shuklaji... Shuklaji' so loud that one wondered if the India batsmen would have been tempted to ask: "Who have you come to watch? Us or him?"