Navjot Sing Sidhu - The LEGEND in himself....!!!

To understand what a 6ft. 2inches opening batsman from Punjab meant to Indian cricket team and to India, you had either to be born before 1999 or have a very good imagination. This was during the start of live cricket on television, during the implementation of bouncer rule, helmets, match refrees but before cricket as an INDUSTRY. Cricket was still a colonial past time and Indian cricketers were fringe players, who won more friends than matches. Then along came a giant in the most perfect disguise. By all appearance, Navjot Singh Sidhu was an orthodox mannered batsman, belonging to an othodox mannered age. The pleasing symmetry of his batting concealed a driven man and a hard nosed campetitor. He stood ahead of others, not because he had great skill but because he had greater pride - both personal and professional.

Sidhu became the fortess itself. Session by session, hour upon hour, crisis after crisis. Over a eight years cricketing career, he need to be in control of his game and his destiny took him past the ghostly, godly figures of Geoff Boycott, Martin Crowe, Sunny Gavaskar and his nearest contemporary Imran Khan to the very top of the game, the first batsman to hit sixes on every challenged ball. His legend grew through televison during the series at Sharjah and the gospel of the printed word and at same point, the runs and records creased to matter. Sidhu - the batsman became an icon, a symbolic representation of something larger. As long as he was around, we believed Indian would not succumb. When he at crease, India was not second class. 

In the memory, Sidhu is a crisp and fearless technician. As Indian cricket went from out-house to power-house, Gavaskar - the other legend said, " The sense of calm has induced in Sidhu, that first world certainly that progress was possible". Sidhu always remained in the fame. He served the cricket both international and domestic as a commentator, but is now serving the Indian government as a political leader of the opposition party(BJP) and has joined the Indian Television as a host of 'The Great Indian Laughter Challenge'. 

After retirement from Indian Cricket, he is still known for the ambiguities of his personality. His words on air and writing on print contains layers and allusions that have to be mined for meanings. If Sidhu's batting was described as impeccable or courageous, then the man himself today is called more often than not, complicated and courageous...!!!