Rain break musings: Is it little Mushfiqur Rahim or Neymar Jr?

But this piece, written during the prolonged rain break on the first day, is not about lecturing you on how to liaise with people with such chronic cognitive condition. It is about people who suffer from a milder version of it. Between Brad Pitt and Pit Bull, they can tell you perfectly who is who.

But they are likely to mistake Andrea Pirlo for Razak Khan (Bollywood’s bits and pieces man, aka Babu Bisleri / Usman Khujli) going to a fancy dress show with a fake beard and wearing cleats.

People of this tribe can actually disguise their handicap as a talent. They can contribute frequently to the ‘Doppelganger’ section of ESPNCricinfo or The Indian Express’s very own ‘Flukealikes’. Flukealikes, in fact, came into being during the 2010 FIFA World Cup when colleagues discovered that this affliction of spotting even a semblance of resemblance was actually more common than they had previously believed.

An opportunity was sensed in the face of adversity, and suggestions came pouring in. We started seeing Clint Eastwood in David Beckham; CM Punk in Raul Meireles and Booker-T in Pele.

There were differences of opinion as well. Ishant Sharma, for example, would look like Sami Khadira to some and Milan Baros to others. Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Bruno was one man’s Philip Lahm and another’s Fernando Torres. Roger Federer? Arbaaz Khan, one would say; Quentin Tarentino, the second would insist; Prem Chopra, the third would counter. And there would be long debates and lots of laughs.

In some cases, even the gender was no bar. From a distance, Didier Drogba running with the ball would remind the old-timers among us of PT Usha at the Seoul Asian Games. Pole vault queen Yelena Isinbayeva looked, frankly, hot to some of us, while Frodo Baggins to others.

As the Booker T-Pele and Roger Federer-Prem Chopra examples suggest, the propensity, in fact, quickly escalated into an obsession, and some of us even become curators of face’.

I’m a case in point. When I see a picture of the former Army chief General V.K. Singh’s visage, I envisage Sanjay Bangar 15 years down the line.'(It’s another matter that the former India opener doesn’t look like he will grow old anytime soon. Having overseen India’s nets at Fatullah in sweltering heat, the 42-year-old assistant coach proceeded to do 50 push-ups to wind up the session. Pardon the digression.)

Speaking of some flukealikes from this series, Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim would be a shorter version of Neymar with a schoolboy haircut.

Cheteshwar Pujara, meanwhile, has grown a beard and from a distance looks, well not like Virat Kohli but the actor Mukesh Rishi, who usually plays the token seema-paar Afghan terrorist in Sunny Deol’s over-the-top nationalist movies.

A younger, chubbier version of Kohli would look like the Tom cat. And the India Test captain also reminds us — not of somebody this time but of the fact t’at it’s not only us lesser mortals who mix up faces. During the World Cup he abused a Hindustan Times journalist thinking he was an Indian Express reporter.