Cricketers bat for personal space

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Gautam Gambhir’s decision to make a mad dash home and get hitched instead of staying back in Kolkata for India’s one-off T20 against England on Saturday has given the old game a new challenge to contend with. It’s not a club versus country tussle anymore, but rather of personal commitments versus cricket.

It’s the second time in three seasons Gambhir has bunked an international game. In 2009, the Delhi cricketer missed a Test match against Sri Lanka in Mumbai to attend his sister’s wedding and Harbhajan followed in his footsteps a year later by missing two home ODIs against a strong South African side for the same reason.
Depending on whether you are a purist or a more broad-minded cricket buff, such moves can either be outrageous or make complete sense. Regardless, it is something the game never witnessed in the past. “Something like this was unimaginable in my time. All my three sisters’ weddings were organised keeping my cricket schedule in mind. Even I got married in the off-season — in May,” former India opener and coach Anshuman Gaekwad said.
Nandini, the wife of late former cricketer Dilip Sardesai, recalled, “I married Dilip on October 18 1963, just two days after he returned from Hyderabad after the Moin Ud Dowla cricket tournament. Two days after the ceremony, he was back playing the Ranji Trophy. There was no honeymoon.”
“The players in the old days could not afford the luxury of skipping matches. They did not want to let the team down,” she added.
The BCCI announced the schedule for the ongoing India-England matches back in June, so it is unlikely that Gambhir and his family were not aware of the dates clashing. But the decision to not alter the date of the wedding proves that priorities have indeed changed among cricketers in recent times
After South Africa’s shock exit in the 2011 World Cup quarterfinals, captain Graeme Smith, instead of facing the public back home, went to Ireland to propose to his popstar girlfriend. Recently, both Ricky Ponting and Kevin Pietersen skipped games to be with their pregnant wives. Although not even the harshest critic will seriously begrudge a parent from witnessing the birth of their child, in the old days, cricket was the first among equals.
Sunil Gavaskar saw his son for the first time when Rohan was already two months old. “Before that, he had only seen pictures of Rohan when India was touring the West Indies, thanks to commentator Suresh Saraiya who carried the pictures from Mumbai,” said Gaekwad.
In his autobiography Sunny Days, Gavaskar wrote, “Never before have I looked forward to returning home as keenly as this time. I was literally counting days when I could get to see my son who was already two months old.”