After returning from Pakistan, S. Sreesanth headed south. Back home in Kerala, he spent the day signing autographs, giving interviews. The next evening, he was in Mumbai to sign a commercial contract with a celebrity management company. There again, he was surrounded by journalists, photographers and fans.All this, however, failed to excite the youngster, despite the fact that this is just his first step towards stardom.However, one particular incident in the last two days has stuck to Sreesanth’s mind like nothing else. Before making his way out of Mumbai, heading for Vadodara, a young couple with their child in hand, stopped Sreesanth and requested: ‘‘Can we have a photograph with you?’’ ‘‘It was such a beautiful moment,’’ he bowler said, still gushing about the way he felt when the couple made him feel so important. No sooner had he returned from Pakistan, the focus immediately shifted to Sreesanth gearing up for his Test debut against England. ‘‘I’m in no hurry,’’ he kept saying, but at the back of his mind, bowling to the likes of ‘‘Flintoff, Vaughan and Strauss’’ was a stimulating thought. Not for nothing did the 22-year-old get his name changed with the help of a numerologist. Sreesanth is now Sreesunth. Sreesunth has dreams of making it big in Indian bowling and he is not going to leave any stone unturned in fulfilling them. One has to just watch the twinkle in his eyes, when he is asked about Sachin Tendulkar’s wicket in the Challenger Trophy, last year. ‘‘It was a dream. It changed a lot of things for me. Helped my confidence like nothing else,’’ he says.But the bowler has his task cut out in his debut series itself. Sreesunth has fond memories of Nagpur, where he took six wickets in a Ranji Trophy match a couple of seasons back. However, if and when he takes field against England on the same track, there will be a different challenge in front of him. He will get to bowl on a flat, brown wicket in Nagpur, contrary to what he found last time.‘‘Actually, I also made my ODI debut at Nagpur, and was happy with the way I bowled. Grass or no grass, I’m looking forward to it,’’ he says. Sreesunth believes that it is important for him to know first what he is going to do, regardless of what the wicket is like, bowl to his strengths rather than getting busy trying to experiment on a non-responsive wicket. The fact that Sreesunth is the kind of bowler who likes seaming conditions, especially when it happens off the wicket, Nagpur will be a real challenge.The bowler says, in Dravid and Chappell he has got seniors who have given him a ‘‘lot of confidence’’ and would look forward to learning as much as possible from this combination.
