A sporting fantasy comes alive

In a unique experiment to determine the best men's tennis player in the world; Rafael Nadal - the king of clay, with a 72 match unbeaten run on the surface, squared off against Roger Federer; the champion on grass, with a 48 match streak of his own. They played on a half -clay, half-grass court - thereby creating a neutral ground for a fair contest. The critics’ weren’t too impressed and the match, which was won by Nadal in a third-set tiebreaker, did little to settle the original debate. Well, damn the critics. This was a dream come true for fans like me, who always cook up such fantasy exercises (although we rarely get to see them), and I well and truly believe that they make the game richer and so much more fun.

Another such attempt, which immediately comes to mind was the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ matches, in tennis again. In part III, Jimmy Connors played Martina Navratilova with the handicap of being allowed just one serve per point and having to cover a larger court widened by half of each doubles alley. Just for the record, the 'man' still won.

Tinkering comes naturally to us. I remember trying to improvise the rules in the playground, when, as kids we struggled to form two decent well matched sides; the group consisting of friends and cousins of different age groups. Such variations brought the game alive and made it fun for all involved.

The mother of all such fantasies would be bringing players of different ages together. Just imagine, if the advancement of modern science can pit Bjorn Borg against Rafael Nadal, or have Brett Lee bowl to Vivian Richards, or have Maradona play against Pele.

The purists and traditionalists will call for a ban on such events and label them as 'gimmicks'. But after the 'traditional' fare we witnessed in the football and cricket world cups, I'd still settle for the 'gimmicks'

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