Sreesanth, Indian Cricket's Enfant Terrible

Ouch, you have been a wee bit too harsh on the lad. Alright, he is not a great bowler, but he does possess a very effective outswinger -- provided he sacrifices on the pace. And as far as his on-field antics are concerned, you rightly mention that thin line between aggression and infantile behavior. My opinion? His "aggressive" behavior needs to be backed up by performances. As long as thats happening, he shouldn't mind paying that money. Of course, needless to say, by now he must be knowing most of the match referees like the back of his hand.

you proudly claim yourself to be a maverick but do not hesitate to diss another.You find Sreesanth's antics childish and immature but what about the Aussies?A guy like Haden insults Bhajji by asking him why he has his balls on the head is mature behaviour for you ? Please tell me who has written the cricket sledging book if there is at all such a thing .Sreesanth has brought his own brand of mental disintegration and don't tell me it doesnt work.We all saw it at the T20 worldcup as well as the first two ODI's.
To me the Aussies are the biggest fools and they better be careful.India is a country of over a billion and the aussies would be wise not to instigate them,it could create riots.BTW it has has already started,the aussie team bus has been stoned

It is really ironic to see Australia - a team with the most hot heads in world cricket, including Ricky Ponting who has a history of not-so-decent behaviour on the cricket field - claim the moral high ground here.

Somebody said it right - when you do the same thing to the Australians, they piss in their pants, as they did at Chandigarh. The "world champions" with their famed "nerves of steel" (maraging steel perhaps?) crumbled under the pressure of scoring a mere 70 runs in the last 10 overs.

Ricky Ponting for all his blabber about "controlled aggression" in press conferences couldnt score more than 30 runs in the two matches he played. He's been talking and talking from the moment he stepped in India. But he hasnt backed it up with performances. He looks as silly as Sreesanth - the shake more, piss less kinds. He has a mouth too big for his pygmy sized body. Maybe he should shut up and concentrate on his cricket. Score some runs. You dont score runs squawking nonsense in press conferences.

Meanwhile, Sreesanth will be expected to back up his onfield antics with some performance, as Truman said. He's already taken 8 wickets in the series but he hasnt had a too big impact yet.

What in the world does enfant mean ? :) I am an Indian living in California. One big distinction that I see in newspapers here and some back home in India is the Indian ones use such words which 99.99% of the readers wont understand. The emphasis should be to convey the idea, not make the reader use a dictionary. I used Google to lookup for enfant, I still could not find its meaning in this context.

As far as Sreesanth's behavior is concerned, at the end of the day, cricket is a game, which makes all its money by providing entertainment to people. His antics just add to all the entertainment, thats all. Wont it be boring if everything goes strictly according to the book ? And as far as being a role model is concerned, I'd rather like kids to not take on cricketers and movie stars as role models. Mahathma Gandhi is a better candidate. All our kids / teenagers are watching all the crap that goes on tv these days, which is much worse than what poor kiddish Sreesanth did.

Alex

enfant terrible......

1 a : a child whose inopportune remarks cause embarrassment b : a person known for shocking remarks or outrageous behavior
2 : a usually young and successful person who is strikingly unorthodox, innovative, or avant-garde

Hi Truman
Agree with you, aggression backed by strong on-field performances is what is needed. Australians are best at that.

Kela,
I don't have much to say to you in reply to your comment for you might start a riot here, and I'd rather stay away from that; remember cricket is only a sport after all.


Just to make my stance clear, while I don't agree with Sreesanth's display of childish aggression, I am all for our cricketers being aggressive. I'd rather prefer Dhoni and his boys take cue from Ganguly's brand of aggression, let's not forget by doing what he did Ganguly successfully perturbed the Aussies.

Cheers!
RA.

This is the worst article i've read recently.If the writer does'nt like him ,you do'nt have the right to support india as well.because Sreesanth is the person who played the major role in the Test wins at West indies and South Africa.Poor Article,i dont rate it .

"Ganguly's brand of aggression"

by turning up late for the toss? getting out repeatedly to bouncers aimed at his ribs ? i'm LMAO here at your suggestion.Ganguly was a lame duck my friend ,he just managed to irritate steve waugh at the toss thats all,he hardly made any impression on the aussie batsmen.Sreesanth does and he does back up his aggression by taking wickets.He was the highest wicket taker in the first 3 odi's.

Sreesanth certainly does have talent that comes rarely in Indian cricket which is the ability to bowl quite fast at times. I hope for his own sake he cuts down on his antics and concentrates more on his bowling. I find his behaviour embarassing too at times but you just got to accept he is a character. Sreesanth has managed to rile the Australians who are by far the biggest sledgers in the game. Now when they complain about Sreesanth sledging them they are like the pot calling the kettle black. Simply for that I have to take my hat off to you Sree.

forget sreesanth.....

the aussies raped us today...if we still have some shame...we should stop playing cricket...cost of various brands who sponsor cricket will come down...inflation will reduce, svaings will go up, GDP will go up....wah....:-)

I wonder if somebody calculated the impact of cricket on GDP :-) must be atleast 2%. China-India-Indian cricket=0

arre if we stop playing cricket who will we look upto to feel good about ourselves and temporarily forget our damned existence ? karan johar's last few films have been flops.Maybe farah khan can impress with om shanti