Sidhu on cricket and Mandira

Whether it is cricket, politics or Mandira Bedi’s saree issue, Navjyot Sidhu loves to shoot from the lip.
Just ask Navjyot Sidhu what’s uppermost on his mind right now and he says, “The state of Indian cricket. The game is my passion, and it pains me to see it sliding downwards by the day.” But the players have now refused to sign the new contracts...
“And they must too. No country has ever gagged and tied the hands of their cricket players. Does the BCCI think our players will be motivated to give the game their best if they’re kept thinking about basic bread and butter issues? All this is happening because the BCCI is run by businessmen, who under the guise of honorary-ism run fiefdoms,” says Sidhu.
Sidhu warms up to his favourite topic. “They think the players must remain puppets, poodles who’d let their career go any which way depending on the whims and fancies of the selectors. The World Cup is a situation where every player must pause, and then chart the direction his career must take. But we just don’t allow that to happen.”
Moving from cricket to politics... people have been saying that Sidhu’s reneging on his election promises. “I never made any promises or pie charts in the first place. I have always maintained that I shall do my best and I am doing that,” he says.
In the middle of this he asks, “Did you watch the World Cup final?” And before one can groan ‘not again’, he carries on, “Damp squib. It was a snore and a bore. This is what happens to a game if you bog it down with rules and commercialise it beyond salvation. This WC will only be remembered for Bob Woolmer.”
And Mandira Bedi’s saree? “Arre... that’s all nonsense. If India had performed better, jhanda apne aap ooncha ho jata. Just because she wore it on a saree, it has been disgraced? Even her tattoo episode – she felt it was an honour to her religion. But people don’t see that,” he says. But she said sorry...
“I believe that justifying a fault doubles it. But Mandira is like that – a beautiful person from within. If I were 20 years younger, I’d have gone down on my knees and proposed to her.”