Blog Posts by Ayaz Memon

Politics, unlike cricket, is not played with a straight bat, a former cricketer quipped. Sachin Tendulkar’s new innings as Rajya Sabha MP will afford him several new privileges (not that he has a dearth of these in any case), but as on the field of play, immunity from opponents seeking to knock him down will surely not be one of them!

A former cricketer I know was concerned that Tendulkar had accepted the government’s offer to be an MP. “Politics is a different ball game. It’s not played with a straight bat. How will he cope?” he argued.

It’s a rhetorical question to which there is no immediate answer. But I am not sure I share the former player’s concern entirely. Tendulkar’s nomination is under the special category, which is essentially a testimonial to a high achiever in public life, not for influencing the nuts and bolts of political discourse.

Whether Tendulkar is the most apt choice can be debated ad infinitum, but the pros and cons with any other name from the sports arena would not change a whit. If this is just a populist measure to make political capital, the gains