•You also found time to catch up with old cricketing pals.

Well, all the way . . . I am hoping to have lunch with the Nawab of Pataudi, a couple of days ago Kapil Dev dropped in as well. Just before I came, when India were in England I had dinner with Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid. Which was a great privilege. I chatted to them about not just cricket, because they love reading. They both are big readers. And they explained that because they are on the plane a lot, they are in strange countries a lot, they are in hotel rooms a lot, they read a lot. They need books. So they all read this one (his latest work A Prisoner of Birth).

•Pataudi and you were in college together.

Yes, he was captain of India. And captain of Oxford when I was president of athletics at Oxford. And he was a legend because of his great father. I mean, to anybody who watches the game of cricket, his father is God. But here was this man who had an accident and lost his eye, and we all said, 'Well, that is the end of him. He's gone.' And he has the courage and determination to change his stance and play the game again. And what an example to young people.

•And perhaps the first Indian who could field like an athlete.

Yes. Fielding has become mad recently. The best thing the one day game did and the Twenty20 game did was change fielding. I can see Bradman now skidding a ball past Dennis Compton and he wouldn't have even bothered to chase it. He would have just said that is a four. And since those days, you had the South African . . .

... contd.