So you think Sachin Tendulkar's book is the only one with startling revelations? Here are extracts from more autobiographies. Read them at your own risk:
Bhajji on the Pitch, by Harbhajan Singh
I feared no batsman, bowler or all-rounder, not even one particularly burly Australian with whom I had a scrap in his own country. (I said something to him, yet escaped punishment because some friends cleverly confused inquirers about whether I had called that cricketer a primate species or had publicly exposed his love for his mother.)
But there was one thing I did fear. You may laugh at me, but the sight of a beetle gives me the shivers. The history of my fear goes back to when I was two years old. I am told by my family members that when a precocious little me was bowling to my uncle outside our ball-bearing factory in Jalandhar, such a beetle landed right between my eyes even as I was releasing the ball. The result: I was spooked and my entire bowling action was affected. I was so psychologically scarred that later on, my bowling action was even reported by the umpires.
Once, at Mohali at the end of an IPL match (I was playing for Mumbai against Punjab), I saw the dreaded insect perched on my India mate Sreesanth's neck. I took a mighty whack at it. Of course, because of my wrong bowling action, all I finally managed was a slap on Sreesanth's cheek instead of his neck. The people around saw it differently, but that was all there was to it.
Song and Dance about Cricket, by S Sreesanth
In the first chapter, I said how I am indebted to my mother and father for making me a cricketer. I remember that as a young boy all I ever wanted to do was dance and sing. I wanted to become a reality show star on television through my dancing and earn a lot, a lot, a lot of money. But my mother and father had seen how I was prone to hurling stones at everything and deduced from this that I could make an Indian fast bowler.
"Now if only you didn't have to wipe away your snot so often, you would become an icon," my mother used to tease me. Given the poor control I had over nasal secretions, my mother always tucked a handkerchief in my waist. Later on in life, when I really became an Indian fast bowler, I thought I should honour the role my mother played in my growth as a cricketer. The IPL in 2013 gave me an opportunity. I had missed out on the event the previous year and I was determined not to let this chance go by. When we played against Punjab that year, I proudly tucked a towel in my trouser band. Fortuitous, because just as I bowled, I had to wipe my nose. I still don't know why the police think a runny nose is a big crime.
Not Fond of English: Not the Men, Not the Language, by Ravindra Jadeja
At lunch during the first Test at Trent Bridge in our 2014 tour of England, we were walking back to the dressing room. I had exchanged some rough words with James Anderson earlier, I in Hindi and he in English. Near the boundary line, I felt bad that I had used words Anderson did not understand. So I waited for him to appear and went to him with both my hands raised in a sign of surrender. In a friendly tone, I said "hello". But because my English is not good, maybe it sounded like "helo" because later he said I had used a four-letter word. I just wanted to hug the bowler and say "both of us bowled in the right areas". But he pushed me harshly.
Free Run is a fortnightly look at alternate realities
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