I want Dravid to click

No matter what he goes through, I will always remain his loyal fan. I know he is going through some tough times, but I hope he comes out of it

I was planning to watch the Wankhede match, but is there any point to go there? I have been following the fortunes of the Indian team and, honestly, I am extremely disappointed by their performance.

The rain Gods were kind to us in Bangalore, but the Gods can’t save us every time, right? The solution I think is that we should watch the

Aussies in action and learn from them. They are superb. They look like a team, and they play as one too.

It is obvious, and many of us know that there are individual biases in our cricket team and it shows when we play. I think our cricketers need to focus on the game first, and then get on to other things. Before matches they go to parties, functions and movies.

They should do all those things later and focus on the game first. We in India already give our cricketers so much; they must also give us something back.

It’s time that we focussed our attention on other sports, and moved away from cricket.

We should apologise to these sports, and give them more attention, they deserve it.

In tomorrow’s match I really want Rahul Dravid to click. No matter what he goes through, I will always remain his loyal fan. I know he is going through some tough times, but I hope he comes out of it.

At the same time, I want my favourites in the Australian team — Ricky Ponting, Andrew Symonds and Adam Gilchrist — to perform. Hopefully, Mathew Hayden will play tomorrow, because it is a delight to watch him bat. He is someone I really admire.

I have never watched a match in a stadium. I think it’s so much better to watch it in the comforts of your home, with good friends for company and lots of screaming and shouting.

Why go to a stadium and watch a match in the hot sun without the benefit of action replays?

I must confess that I have played a lot of cricket in the hot sun. We used to have a Marathi actors association in Vakola, and we used to play a lot of cricket.

I remember so many Sundays that we have spent on cricket grounds. Then of course, Iqbal happened, and I played so much cricket in that.

Now, of course, I play it once a while whenever I get the time. Even tomorrow, I will be shooting, but I am sure someone on the sets will have the radio on, and we’ll keep track.

(Shreyas Talpade played the lead role in Iqbal which was based on criket. He spoke to Shilpa Jamkhandikar)