Among the many things I had to do on my first visit to Australia in 1991, I had to “ghost” columns for Allan Border. Unlike a few others, who neither know nor care what goes under their by-line, Border was always ready for me, and as a result I was lucky that I could do what a “ghost” should really do, just transcribe somebody’s thoughts. It also allowed me to talk to him at some length (a couple of times inside the Aussie dressing room where inhibition never had to reside!) and in one of those meetings he told me a player should “take care of the runs and the dollars will take care of themselves”. It is a thought that never leaves the minds of the truly great for they know that when you seek the dollar the runs tend to look elsewhere.

Often the path a young sportsman, or any performer for that matter, chooses is dictated by the air he breathes, the atmosphere that he grows up in. You would have thought, in Indian cricket, that with the likes of Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble around, the debate between excellence and its fruit would long have been decided in favour of excellence. But the twin decoys of money and fame have many seekers in our cricket. Many have succumbed, many more will for blind pursuit cannot see tombstones or graveyards on the way. Only the truly successful chase neither. I suspect it is one of the reasons Indian cricket is in danger of losing a generation.

... contd.