STRETCHED out on the white, crumpled bed in a dark hotel room near the railway station in Pune, curtains drawn, sheets pulled up to his chin, the left hand limp, clutching the muted TV remote, the Twenty20 fireworks exploding in a blur before him, the life of one India’s most promising fast bowlers today hangs on one word: Izzat.
Out of Team India barely a year after the great Brian Lara had patted him on the back, hurt by headlines that he’s unfit, not committed, not intense enough, unable to understand why the world can’t understand him, Munaf Patel, the missing face on that open-top bus in Mumbai after the Twenty20 World Cup, says, “Why do you want to ask others about me? Ask me, I will tell you my story.”
So here it is, then. Everybody else have delivered their lines in this cricket mystery: chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar wants him to prove his fitness, bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad says he needs to show more intensity, some of his teammates say he needs to communicate better, MRF pace academy director T A Sekar wants to know why his student has taken his eyes away from the speedometer.
Now, says Munaf, it’s his turn. Because, he says, he has had enough. Because, he says, “it’s a question of my izzat”.
Because? “Dekho, paisa aur position bahut badi cheez hai, life mein. My family, my parents, two sisters, we used to survive on Rs 1000 a month. And for people like me, there are only two ways to reach there — Bollywood or cricket.”
“But after earning a lot of money, you feel a bit numb about it, inside. That’s when you realise that what’s really important is your izzat, the respect. You don’t get that with money, any amount of money. Cricket has given me the money, and the respect. But now, with all this talk of lack of fitness and intensity, it’s a question of my izzat. And that’s really hurting.”
So is Munaf Patel fit to play? Isn’t he intense enough? Why can’t he communicate? Why can’t he bowl faster?
The mystery begins to unravel, in a gush of words, angry Hindi, some English for effect, the right thumb pressing down hard on the mobile ever so often, cutting a rush of incoming calls, one by one, until you fear he’s going to throw that thing at the wall.
Yes, he was injured twice — during the South Africa tour last November, and in Bangladesh this May. But he was hundred per cent fit in England, just struggling to strike the right rhythm — “I still took three wickets in a match”. No, he did not deliberately hide his ankle bone injury in South Africa just to stick on and “play for money” — he had requested the team management after the one-day series to send him back home, the pain was too much. “It’s all over, I am ready to play, give me a chance,” he says.
“And what is this intensity? Talk to me, try to understand me,” he says.
“I am not upset that I was dropped, because another player has got a chance. That’s fine. I am just so angry with people who are saying the wrong things about me. Let somebody tell me on my face that my attitude is not right. Koi saamne kyon nahin bolta hai?”
“I had a back strain during the Bangladesh tour (in May), that was the lowest moment of my career because I was beginning to strike a rhythm. Now, I am fit. I played a domestic tournament in Bangalore, I played in England, I took wickets there. I am playing matches, and they are saying I am injured. I spoke to John Gloster, the team’s physio, he told me that he had given a fitness report to the manager, saying that I am fully fit. Then I asked the manager, he said ‘I know you are fit’. So how am I injured?”
“The problem with me is that I speak very less. I speak only when I want to, and when I feel the need to. But what I say is straight from the heart. That’s how I grew up in my village. That’s my nature, what can I do about it? If a person speaks less by nature, he speaks less, what can anyone do about it?”
And communication, especially during the time of Greg Chappell as coach? “Cricket is about, bat ball, stump, wicket, fielding, what else is there? You use the same words in Hindi and English. I can understand that. I am from a village, I am just 24, I have played international cricket only for a year, but I am not an idiot.”
But yes, he agrees it may have to do with the fact that he is just not able to get through; that, coming from a village, not knowing the “Good morning, sir-Good evening, sir” routine, he is just not able to fit in. Or more importantly, for Indian cricket, very few have tried to understand what he is all about, where he is from, and why he is what he is.

... contd.