Peter Roebuck writes in the first issue of the Cricinfo magazine:

 

Watching Brian Lara bat is a delight to put beside African sunsets, dry white wine, eating a ripe mango, catching a wave, reading PG Wodehouse and listening to Mozart and Bob Dylan. In short, the Trinidadian satisfies the senses. Even the most jaded cricketing palate belonging to an ancient reporter condemned to decades of fretting about 12 ^th men and cloak and dagger Indian politics feels his guard slipping as Lara constructs a humble defensive stroke. Having reluctantly accepted that the ball cannot be put away with the certainty demanded by his circumstances, Lara does not lower himself merely to interrupting the ball's progress. Rather he constructs an ornate and yet impenetrable blockade that serves its purpose without giving too much ground to the prosaic. Never has 'thou shalt not pass' been so prettily done.

 

Makes you realize, a thing of beauty inspires otherwise prosaic imaginations to quite beautiful creations. It was only someone as beautiful as Brian who could cause Roebuck to erupt into such prose. Reminded me of other writers whom the man's deeds have similarly moved – in particular, write ups on that 153 at Bridgetown, the 213 at Jamaica and that series in Sri Lanka. Also brought to memory some people with not-so-great-English who amazed me by coming up with some brilliant writing simply because they wrote of what they were in love with.

 

(Alas, I cant find a soft copy of the complete article, so cant link it.)

 

**

 

And then there're sub-headlines like

 

After the 2004 incident, the men in blue lost a one dayer in Peshawar again. But they ENJOYED a different date with history in the city after visiting the Khyber pass.

 

And titles like

 

Hutch in their clutch

 

That's the new Sportstar's abysmal formatting. The upper case is for emphasis, I quite agree – but surely we aren't that stupid? That kind of juvenile formatting is an insult. I cant imagine how people like Rohit Brijnath, Ram Mahesh and Brian Glanville allow their articles to be thus ravaged.