I nearly failed my ICSE board exams because of Imran Khan. April 1978, the Indian team had gone to Pakistan to a play a test series in the days we still played cricket across the border. How the Board of Cricket Control could've fixed a test series during my boards was unforgivable. I mean, Indo-Pak matches were special in the way that the Ashes are. But, there it was, I was faced with test matches vs tests. We had an old black and white EC TV with an indoor antenna, and one channel.

I really did try and attempt to study for my crucial tenth standard papers, but Imran Khan stood between me and the Tundra Region, me and Trigonometry, me and Tipu Sultan, me and achieving a minimum ten aggregate. (How I made it through that exam, watching the Test match in the day, studying through the night, and still managing a school education, at a time when 54 per cent still got you into college, I'll never know).