Mr. Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister Manmohan Singhji,

I know that you are busy with the Commonwealth Games meeting so I will keep this short. Whether Kashmir should get freedom from India is moot but I can most assuredly tell you that India should get freedom from Kashmir.

Think about it.

Rahul Dravid's batting technique

I feel for Rahul Dravid. He is perhaps the only batsman to have missed out on at least one big score during the recently concluded run fest in Sri Lanka. Which is a pity because I feel that everything is ticking well in his batting except one slight technical error that I have noticed consistently in the past couple of years. Bowlers, and especially fast bowlers who can exploit this error will succeed in getting him out bowled through the gate or LBW. Frankly, I’m quite surprised that our coaching staff haven’t already pointed this out to him, and the canny Cricketer that he is, he hasn’t detected it himself. Take one look at his backlift. It just is not straight enough. Where ideally it should point towards first slip, his is much more towards the gully region. Thus, his bat doesn’t come down in a ‘straight-bat’ arc but much more in the ‘cross-bat’ arc, which in turn tends to produce a gap between bat and pad.
This happens quite often with batsmen who use light bats. With lighter bats, one has to consciously practice using the top hand to lift the bat. This has to be done to the point that it becomes part of one’s muscle memory. Rahul Dravid will just need to go back to the nets and let his top hand (left hand) do all the controlling. I feel that once he sorts this out, he will easily get back to his heavy scoring ways.