High-Fliers have the prerogative to complain about jet lag but the travel travails of common cricketers are more down to earth. Saurashtra’s old hand Sitanshu Kotak’s hard day in the hot and humid October afternoon at the MIG club in a practice game against South Africa has left him drained. He gets nauseated as he talks about his 2/49 in eight overs and his three-hour 82, but nothing will stop the 12-year domestic veteran from recounting his rare outing against an international team.

Just a week from now, Kotak will be 34 and the hectic cricket travel is taking its toll. “I was playing for BPCL in Udaipur on Monday. I finished that game, drove 250 kms myself to reach Ahmedabad and from there took a train here. Tonight, I take the train back to Ahmedabad and drive to Udaipur to join my BPCL teammates again,’’ he nearly loses his breath as he completes the sentence.

So after the game, when the cameras zoomed in, and South African skipper Graeme Smith casually remarked that the outing was satisfactory for his players, the other story — the international moments of an Indian domestic cricketer, one of the hundreds who go through the grind year after year — naturally went unnoticed. So what if Kotak’s slow left-arm bowling on a turning track severely tested Smith’s batsmen, and his stonewalling with the bat exposed Safs limited bowling options.

But then, the only one to benefit from Kotak’s presence at MIG today was Smith, who got a reality check before his team’s first game against New Zealand on Monday. For, Kotak’s cricketing stock isn’t expected to rise after this all-round show against the Safs. His 82 wouldn’t even get a mention in the selection committee meeting to decide the tour party for South Africa; in fact, he wasn’t even chosen for the West Zone squad picked just a few days ago. “It is no longer about getting the big break. Even the high of seeing one’s name in the headlines has long gone. Now at this age it’s very reassuring to know that I can still face the best. That long Udaipur-Ahmedabad-Mumbai trip was because of that,’’ he says.

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