Cricket is their first love but our men in blue have other passions too. In a bid to take their minds off the stress of playing the game in Sri-Lanka, members of team India are glued to their laptops or hooked to their iPods. But it’s not all about song and dance, some senior players like Rahul Dravid are voracious readers. Dravid favours biographies and Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life is one of his favourites.
Yuvraj Singh is currently reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. He says, “I thought I’ll complete this book by the end of this tour but it looks difficult.”
Dinesh Karthik likes fiction and self-help books. “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma changed the way I perceived things. It left a huge impact,” says the TN captain. His colleague R. Ashwin has just read The Name Is Rajinikanth by Dr Gayathri Sreekanth. “I have been a huge fan of him and wanted to know more about his life. The book has been quite inspiring,” he says.
But not everyone is into books. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli prefer Hindi and Punjabi pop, while Delhi duo Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, however, prefer music that is soulful. “Good music helps you relax before a crucial match,” said Gambhir. Speedster Ishant Sharma, on the other hand, spends a good deal of time surfing the Web. Looks like the new crop of players don’t favour group games much.
While earlier players would often sit down to a game of Bridge, that’s no longer the case. According to Sunil Gavaskar, the decision to give single rooms to players since 2001 has had a deterring effect on team spirit. But that’s what change is about, you have to shed something old in order to pursue something new!