From: venkat@tucker.mech.utah.edu (Venkatesh Subramanyan)
Subject: SA Tour Predictions : Humour Impaired & Brain Dead hit n now
Organization: University of Utah Computer Center
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 92 06:07:06 GMT


1. The pick of the bowlers will be Srinath and Kumble.
    Not difficult to figure  out given the pitch conditions.
   Probably Raju will do well too. 

2. The batting will be propped by Tendulkar, Manjrekar and Kapil.They might as
   well selected then as openers. 
   
3. Raman will be a dismal failure and will be thanking his stars to 
   be alive end of the series. As soon as he returns to India he will
   continue plundering thousands of runs against Manipur, Tripura, China
   Mongolia et.al. (a la arun Lal)

4. Banerjee will hit the NY times best seller list with a Tourist guide 
   book titled " The art of going on cricket tours without having to Play".
   He will go on to list the best places to eat dosa, vadas etc in Australia,
   Zimbabwe etc. Will also list the major shopping centers and the best places
   to buy striped boxer shorts and cheap socks. Probably will be shopping for 
   the rest of the cricketers wives too. 

5. Ravi Shastri will be listed in Wisden's as the player who contibuted the 
   most runs in extras. The ball hitting his pads, guards, chest pads,
   arm protectors and everything else except his bat. He will also go down
   in history as the player with more protective armour on him than American
   football players. He would have made a cumulative total of about 118  runs
   with three fourths of the tour over(inclusive of the match against SA under
   15 team). Just when the mobs have begun to Loot/burn/plunder his home in
   Bombay and garlanded his picture with chappals at every known steet corner
    he   will come up with a 296 run knock made over 3 days ( 272 singles,
   10 twos
   and a misfielded four, And  as many lives as a cat) against  some local 
   team.  Thus, he will be assured to lead the country to greater glory for
    a  good part of the next century.

6. Kapil Dev will be the biggest draw  outside of the game. Probably the South
   Africans will rename a few gold mines as Kapil. Taking a hint from East
   Bengal Strong possibility of the Springboks signing him onto a contract for 
   playing rughby with them. Might give serious   thought to it given the
    future of the Indian team.


7. Yadav will end up as the Pick of the tour with his wicket keeping abilities.
   More will end up as the  jester in some court of the defunct  royal families
     in   Baroda. 

8. All through the tour Chetan Sharma will be trying to figure out whether he
   can run faster than he can bowl( probably he will get to the batsman's
   end earlier than the ball). By the end of the tour will be bald headed 
   due to his appealing tactics( People who have watched his hair pulling 
   antics will know what I mean).

9. Half way thro the tour Azhar will pray for godsend to rescue his team.
   Azhar himself will crack three magnificient fours off the first three
   balls in every match and then flick the fourth one into the fielder at short
   sqaure leg. At the end of the tour will still be admiring the SA captain
   for his excellent anticipation and field placing !!

  After the tour is over and our battered warriors are back the Board for
  Cricket control will start plotting out the next moves to desperately win a 
  few matches. Having realised its become impossible to beat Sri Lanka &
  Zimbabwe they will lobby for getting Mongolia, China, Qatar, Burma , Taiwan
  Thailand etc into the league of test playing nations and demand rights to 
  play them first. After narrowly escaping losing to these countries the 
  Pundits will be really short of ideas to win matches. And then the great 
  brainwave ;
  Somebody will come up with the brilliant idea of training a few umpires
   with the   Shakoor Rana school of Umpiring.

  There begins the Golden period of India's dominance at Home.
  Never mind the wars. And the  team  will not go on any  tours for lack
  of Foreign exchange!! 


 -Venka

 P.S: If the Bombay Bombing Brigade or anybody else takes offense, tough luck.
      The article was meant to be funny(But I will stick to my comments about 
      Shastri though), so take it with a pinch of salt.