Aug 17, 2001 10:14 PM
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Lets face it, the youth of India cannot relate with A Ravi Shastri today.
Even today when I go to a stadium to watch a cricket match between any 2 countries the crowd still shouts ''Shastri hai hai'' ''SHastri hai hai''
The crowd does not remember his heroics of the early 80s and rather remembers the increasing number of balls that he took to get from 49 to 50 or 99 to 100 in his last few test match innings.
I do remember Shastri driving his Audi around the cricket field which he won as the man of the series in the mini word cup.That was the highest point of his career. He may have also had a good cricketing mind to captain the Indian side for a while, but somewhere somehow Shastri lost it.
As the one day game got more popular the spectators got fed up with his slow game and literally started booing him every time he walked out to bat.
The young Indians relate more to the dashing Kapil, The gutsy Srikant and the elegant Vengsakar.They like their hero to have an aggressive attitude that has taken teams like Australia South Africa to the top.
Ravi Shastri served Indian cricket well but I feel shastri will be more remembered for his bold commentary off the field than his heroics on the field