If I were to broadly divide ourselves during our school days into various categories based on our ambitions, many wanted to become doctors or engineers. Most of the remaining ones wanted to become either Sunil Gavaskar or Amitabh Bachchan, i.e. cricket player or actor. Life was simple. There were no other categories to choose from. Of course, some of us wanted to continue their family business, and a few others dreamt of becoming a pilot or an army man. But they were in the minority. I, too, wanted to become a cricket player. In school, I was a decent player. However, one day, I came across an article (about cricket, what else?) that analyzed the performance of Sunil Gavaskar from various statistical angles. Mind you, these were the days when we had not even heard about computers. Internet and mobile were perhaps not even in our imagination. So, information was very difficult to obtain. On top of it, I was staying in my home town, Solapur. Even major Marathi newspapers would reach