I was watching a cricket match one day at home and it got boring after a while. Then suddenly this young man walks in and I am told by my parents he is from my city. I tell them there is no use the game is not going to get better for india. Seeing the players earlier play I was almost decided that the pitch had nothing to offer to any batsmen. He came, and off he stylishly glanced a ball on the off side to a four on the leg. I was left amazed. I thought in my mind can he do this again or is just a one time thing. The man continued on his agressive batting each successive shot better than the previous one and soon we were seeing boundaries, fast running between wickets, a agressive runrate and last but not the least a magician performing his tricks with a magic wand. This man was mohammed azharuddin. His strokes, his groundplay his willingness to be agressive and risk taking moves won him not only personal accolades but gave india many championship cups and wins.
There reached a point of time when I would just watch his portion of the batting and leave. He soon became the captain and there was no doubt in my mind he would make a great captain. And a great captain he was, sometimes termed as the winningest captain.
Like every human being has his ups and downs so did he. But what is important is the ability of a person to fight back and rise to the top again. Which azhar showed by returing into the game with a bang twice after he was dropped. The first time he even scored a 295 run partnership with jadeja.
Then his name came up in the match fixing. Whether he did or not is not something I am going to debate. But I think the punishment was more than required.