So finally it took a South Indian sexpot to grab the Bengal Tiger by his b***s.
Nothing new, really. Indian cricketers - particularly captains for some inexplicable reason - have long since been attracted to film stars and vice-versa.
Back in the 70s rumours were rife that S Venkataraghavan and Hema Malini were planning to take the plunge. Before that the biggest cricket / filmi union of them all was the 'Tiger' Pataudi / Sharmila Tagore marriage in 1968.
And did you know that Garry Sobers - yes, he was captain too - and Anju Mahendru got engaged on the West Indies tour of India in 1966-67. That broke up - poor Anju's parent's were horrified at the thought of their 'fair' daughter marrying a black man. And later, she would be ditched by Rajesh Khanna. But that is another story.
Pataudi recalls how he plied Sharmila with expensive gifts from abroad in a bid to woo her. Fridges and air-conditioners for heaven sakes, unheard of luxuries in the 60s.
Years later it was Ravi Shastri - captain for a solitary Test match - who was snapped escorting Amrita Singh all over the world.
We keep going back to Tigers here. So surprise, surprise, Amrita would eventually get hooked by tiger cub Saif Ali Khan.
The big glamour story of our times of course has been the Azhar / Sangeeta Bijlani match-up. Whether Sangeeta was responsible for luring Azhar down the slippery path of luxuries and temptation, we shall never know.
Things starting hotting up just before the start of the 1996 Wills World Cup. Trust our captains to get distracted just before a crucial event. Now we have the spectacle of Souravda escaping Nagma to a temple in Tamil Nadu legendary for undoing the status of unmarried women. Get it?
Nagma has flopped in Bollywood. But a little (Tamilian) bird told me that she is number one in the South. Our captain is probably ruing the fact that the venues for the second and third Test are his hometown of Kolkata and her hometown of Chennai!
Maybe that's why he decided out of the blue to play for Board President's XI in their three day game in Delhi from March 6-8 - just to get away from the heat. But, guess what? Wife Dona followed him from Kolkata. While Maharaj was hiding out at the Taj Palace hotel (the rest of the home players were shacked up in the three-star Broadway), Dona is said to have been staying with her brother. And consulting lawyers too.
And our beloved skipper? While he was on the field at the Kotla, he was an embarrassment. Scratching around for 90 minutes for a miserable 40; missing sitters galore at slips; fielding distractedly while in the covers and allowing his deputy Vijay Dahiya to make the field / bowling changes.
While he was off for large stretches, he was glued to his cell phone.
Damage-control of the marital variety? What about paying the same amount of attention to the Indian cricket team, captain, dear captain?

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