Wit Wisdom and Whoop

They had a board with all players who had scored centuries and taken 5 wickets and it was good to see 6 Indian players in both lists of which except one I have had the privilege of seeing in action all others. No prizes for guessing that I ended up exchanging more cricket stories with the guide, but if he was impressed, the only thing he took me to see with a flourish was a photo pf Sachin Tendulkar with Donald Bradman. He proudly said that there were only 3 prints of this photo made. One was given to Sachin, one to Bradman and the third what he showed us hanging on the wall. One can then climb higher and get a wonderful view of the Rod Laver stadium where the Australian Open Tennis championship is held. The elderly gentleman who gave us the tour is also seen in this picture. Unlike in India where the cricket stadiums seem to be the exclusive domain of VIP’s, the powerful and influential, every stadium here and elsewhere I have visited allow visitors and have conducted tours. Invar...

This travelogue even if the title says - Australia is misleading. Its more about  Cricket since on my visits there barring for one exception I ended up making it a cricket tour.   This sounds rather strange but then this relates to a visit to Australia where, by design, the focus ended up as cricket. There was a conference in Delhi and I bumped into a very nice and wonderful gentleman named Kelvin and he insisted that I visit Australia on business since there were many opportunities together. Australia I knew was a vast country and so he suggested that I arrive into Perth and then we would go to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane  and meet all clients and research the market. He promised to make all arrangements for the meetings and visits and I landed in Perth. I found that he was so exceedingly nice that even though he had a packed schedule for me he had kept one afternoon to show me the sights of his country and he insisted that I must get a taste of Australia. I hap...