Sanjay Manjrekar to deliver ninth Dileep Sardesai lecture

Sanjay Manjrekar

Sanjay Manjrekar will deliver the ninth Dilip Sardesai Memorial Lecture at the CCI on September 29. It must be a privilege for Manjrekar to deliver the annual lecture held in honour of Sardesai, who passed away this day in 2007, because India's 1971 WI tour hero played a significant role in his development.

In his autobiography, Imperfect (published by Harper Sport), Manjrekar dwelled on how Sardesai would supervise nets held for young cricketers and admonish them for playing loose shots. "Sardesai opened our eyes to what batting discipline was truly about. If a ball was bowled wide outside the off stump, out of habit we would just casually throw our bats at it. We were in the nets after all, and got only a certain number of deliveries to face, unlike at an actual match. This would drive Sardesai mad. 'What are you doing?' he would yell. 'Why do you want to give a chance to the bowler? If you want to play, play with conviction," wrote Manjrekar.

Sunil Gavaskar delivered the first Dilip Sardesai Memorial Lecture on July 2, 2009 and was followed by Bishan Singh Bedi, Kapil Dev, Sourav Ganguly, Ravi Shastri, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble and VVS Laxman.

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