Some people are born with a foot in the mouth, some people achieve foot-in-the-mouthness and some have a foot-in-the-mouth thrust upon them. Popular opinion has it that the cricketing journalist must comprise a sizeable portion of all three categories.

They sounded the death knells for Tendulkar’s career after his captaincy stint, prior to his almost single handed master blasting of the Aussie attack, dismissed Rahul Dravid’s one day batting capabilities just before the wall etched his niche as a world class ODI batsman and raised sagacious doubts over Virender Sehwag’s lack of footwork, again just prior to Veeru’s demolishing act of the Pakistani bowling in the first test. The impeccable timing in each case, deserves special note and appreciation.

Indeed, the cricketing journalist is an excellent exponent of that sublime and subtle art of putting the foot in the mouth and firmly keeping it there for most of the cricketing season. In terms of sheer consistency of form, there comes to mind a single stalwart who can maybe upstage your average cricket journalist, but only just about.

This was an ex-comrade from b school who shall remain unnamed. This gentleman’s involved technique had been dissected by the more discerning folk on campus and summarized in the following key steps:
1. Open mouth
2. Put foot in mouth
3. Close mouth
This hypothesis was validated after several rounds of exhaustive empirical research over a period of a year and a half. I have yet to meet a more thorough professional. Across the print media, however, there are enough and more to match talents with the gentleman thus briefly described.

It was thus, with a light heart that I read about Irfan Pathan’s loss of form as a bowler subsequent to the second test, due apparently, to his recently discovered batting talents. Almost inevitably, the score for Pakistan after the first over of the third test today read 0 for the loss of 3 wickets, courtesy a hat trick by Pathan.

Journalists rock!