Pop Quiz #2: Who am I?

(Note: Every so often I shall have a pop quiz on my blog with questions about people, places, things, events, and any other thing that comes to mind. Please take the quiz without peeking at the answers, which will be included at the end, and let me know how you did.

Click here for an earlier set of questions.)

This set of questions are fairly easy to answer.

1) Of the 65 66 ODI matches I have played for India, no less than 40 have been abroad. I played in the Under-19 World Cup final where my team, chasing 110 to win, lost by 38 runs! Five of my team-mates were out for 0 that day. In hindsight, the 4 runs I scored batting at #3 were a big deal. In the 4 editions of the IPL, I have won a championship and scored over 350 runs in each season. When people talk about me the words talented and lazy often get mentioned in the same sentence.

2) Jimmy Connons once said about me, "In an era of specialists, you're either a clay court specialist, a grass court specialist, or a hard court specialist...or you're ______ ________." I have played in at least 5 finals at each of the four Grand Slam tennis tournaments. The only man to ever do so.

3) My first 8 scores in Test cricket were 16, 18*, 59, 224, 227, 125, 4, 120. Less than 20 months later, aged 23, I played my last Test match for India, finishing with a career average of 54+. However, the enduring memory of my time in India colors isof me shedding tears as the world burned around me.

4) In a classic case of not letting facts get in the way of a good story, my contributions in a World Cup-winning campaign were 0, 26, 33, 8, 0, 6 - a total of just 75 runs in 6 matches @ 12.5 runs per inning. Yet the perception that has built up over time is that I was as instrumental as some of my more formidable colleagues in bringing us the win. On my Test debut, I scored an unbeaten century as my team took a 291 run lead in the first inning at home. Three of us scored centuries while none of the visiting batsmen scored a single one. Yet, we lost the Test match!

5) During the Under-19 cricket tour of England in 2002, in the third One Day International, I opened the batting and scored 177, helping chase down England's total of 305. (A few days later this feat was forgotten as the senior team chased down 326 in the NatWest final at Lord's). I then went on to captain the India Under-19 team in the 2003/2004 Under-19 Cricket World Cup, where we won 5 of 6 group matches before losing to the eventual champions Pakistan in the semi-finals. While my fellow-mates (Suresh Raina, Robin Uthappa, Shikar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik, RP Singh, and VRV Singh) have played for the senior squad I have never had the honor of doing so.

Answers after the jump:


a) This was really obvious, wasn't it?
b) In my book, he is the GOAT.
c) Hard to believe that, not so long ago, he was the toast of India and touted to surpass even Sachin.
d) If Sangakkara had not emerged, I probably would have played more matches. Maybe.
e) Moving to Baroda may have given me a jumpstart but playing with SRT may just be the final push I need to make it big.