Random Cricket Photos Post 49


#RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy

Debut at the age of 34. Just 39 Tests as a player and 31 out of them as captain. 17 wins and just 4 losses and Mike Brearley can easily lay claim to the title of the best Test captain the world has seen.
But that's about Mike Brearley and his cricket.

There's more to Brearley, of course. And no, we are not going to talk about his post cricket career as a Psychoanalyst but something else.

In 1976, right after making his debut for England, cricket brought Brearley to the Indian shores. Of the many Indians Brearley met on that trip, one was Mana Sarabhai, the granddaughter of the Gujarati industrialist Ambalal Sarabhai and niece of Vikram Sarabhai. Although it's not known who bowled who over, but the two fell in love. Marriage followed soon and soon the man from London found himself as the 'Jamai of Ahmedabad'.

The Cambridge alumnus wasn't done with just marrying the darling of the Sarabhai family. In fact, from 1985 to 1988, he went on to take lessons in Gujarati from the famous Gujarati poetess Sarup Dhruv, who in a 2011 interview with TOI recalled her pupil as very 'disciplined'. "When he left for England, I used to give him homework, which he did unfailingly and submitted the next year.”

Even now, the former English captain, a father to two kids, retains his connection with Ahmedabad. Every December, the Brearleys travel to the Gujarat city to spend Christmas with Mana's relatives. "If she can spend 11 months with me in London, I can spend a month in Ahmedabad with her," remarked Brearley on his 2011 tour to India.

Adorable, right? Rodney Hogg wasn't off the mark when he said about his Ashes rival that he has a 'degree in people'.

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