Sad, but Balaji’s ring tone tells a true story and more

Bollywood’s philosophical look at living the moment and the temporary high of this unpredictable would have provided a perfect background score at a TNCA function on the match eve where Balaji — nursing a career-threatening stress fracture of the back — sat just behind Team India physio John Gloster and the new-kid-on-the-pace-block S Sreesanth.

Watching the just healed pacers Zaheer Khan and Ajit Agarkar sitting in the front row and remembering the missing faces of Irfan Pathan, Munaf Patel and Ashish Nehra, it seemed Balaji's ring tone was more like the signature tune of the fitness-fragile India pace department.

While Sreesanth was busy obliging the autograph hunters, the local boy was more keen to talk to Gloster. Despite playing his last international match in 2005 and missing the entire domestic season this year, the local boy still attracts attention but Balaji refuses to entertain requests.

“Just like that I have stopped signing autographs these days,” he says as he gives a faint glimpse of that famous toothpaste-add grin. These days he is more pre-occupied with the latest injury problem. After his osteitis pubis — a part of the abdomen that connects four muscles — was healed, the latest scare has made Balaji skeptic. “Actually I myself have no idea about the extent of my injury. It is all very confusing and certainly frustrating,” he says.

But there are some around who are ready to give a time frame. Dr H Natarajan, the joint secretary of TNCA, says that “Balaji would need at least six months to take a ball in his hand and bowl. The stress fracture of the back has been detected and he will go for surgery soon. He is in constant touch with Gloster and we will decide if he needs to go abroad or get it done here,” he says.

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