Sreesanth…you could only wish!

“Daisy Who?”the headline blared in DNA After Hrs a few days ago. The story was about Sreesanth, the former India cricketer and about a model called Daisy Bopanna who claimed that the medium-pacer had ‘proposed’ to her by SMS.

The story had pictures of them too. Not pictures of them two, but separate photographs of each of them, each without a cellphone. He was wearing a figure-hugging shiny black suit while she was in a figure-revealing black negligee. Guess who looked the more fetching of the two, in fact, more fetching by far? It certainly wasn’t the cricketer.
As it happens, most young men would feel flattered if someone as luscious as Daisy Who paid any attention to them. 

Which means that someone who looked like Sreesanth would be absolutely, down-on-his knees grateful if Daisy Who paid the slightest attention to him. Sreesanth’s reaction was different though. It was, in fact, more revealing than Daisy Who’s negligee. “Who is she?” he barked, adding, “She is a non-entity.” He didn’t stop at that, of course. Sreesanth never does. “I would not stoop so low as to date an unknown, struggling actor…I would not send love messages to a nobody.”

Right, then, that’s settled. Daisy Who is a nobody. So let’s remind ourselves who Sreesanth is: 
He is the guy who can dish it out but can’t take it. Just a couple of years in cricket and he had the gall to sledge even Tendulkar and Dravid. When he did that to Harbhajan and got slapped for it what did Mr Somebody Sledge-Everyone Sreesanth do? He cried! And then he cried some more. He blubbered and slobbered all over his team mates’ shirts, and if memory serves right, even found the pretty shoulder of Preity Zinta to weep on.
He is the cricketer most recently described by Mathew Hayden as “a particularly over-rated bowler.”  Hayden described him as someone who always loses his cool under pressure so he is an easy target for batsmen to have a go at. Hayden knows what he’s saying. He had just clobbered Sreesanth for 3 sixes in an over that cost 22 runs. In subsequent matches other batsmen too have targeted Mr. Foul Mouth so that 20 runs off his last over has now become par for the course.
He is also the cricketer who at the height of his short-lived fame tried to bulldoze his way past security at an Indian airport. He looked at the man checking his bag and snarled at him, “Do you know who I am?” Yes, Mr Cry Baby.
We do know who you are. You are the ugly face of cricket. You would be a joke if you weren’t so awful. Obviously, it hasn’t sunk in yet. But you are now a struggling cricketer and on the fast-track to becoming a non-entity. So much so that you might make a good match for Daisy Who. But will she have you?