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Agarkar too makes the right choice, maybe...

Prem Panicker in Madras

One of these days, some marketing whizkid is going to organise a Coke versus Pepsi one-day match. And if star power has any impact on the gate receipts, then the match is a guaranteed sellout.

Pepsi -- preparing perhaps for that day -- pulled off a selection coup on the night of September 2, when it roped in pace ace Ajit Agarkar to join the Generation Next lineup that already includes Mohammed Azharuddin, Sachin Tendulkar (yeah, right, he's back with Pepsi, too), Ajay Jadeja and Rahul Dravid.

Wonder who Pepsi's selector is -- might make sense to co-opt him immediately into the national selection committee, the way he's gone around picking up a top quality batting lineup, and now reinforcing it with the emerging strike bowler.

It was quite a funny sight, really. Agarkar, with a career all of three months old, is still unused to the ways of superstardom. At the MA Chidambaram Stadium, while the veterans, the greybeards of the Indian side -- as in Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Jadeja et al -- sign autographs automatically, without even needing to look up at the face of the person proffering the slip of paper, Agarkar all but stands at attention when a fan thrusts a book in his face.

And if it is a girl doing the proffering, his embarrassment is picturesque -- I was fighting to hide chuckles, yesterday afternoon, when a couple of young collegians waylaid him as he was walking out of the dressing room and onto the ground. Ajit stood there, shuffling, while the girls, hardly believing their luck -- the best they could have hoped for was a quickly scribbled autograph -- plied him with question after question, to which he patiently responded.

"He's cute," giggles one, after the star bowler is finally allowed to depart. "Yeah, soooooo polite, doesn't brush you off," gushes the other one. And about a foot and a half away, I sit there and think, you wait, honey, the boy'll learn...

Imagine, then, this Ajit Agarkar as the cynosure of all eyes, at the Taj Ballroom last night. As the guests -- the entire contingent of 22 probables, plus coaches and physio and team doc, and what looked like the entire press corps of Madras -- settled into their seats, there was the heck of a drumroll, a hot baby spot jumped out of the ceiling and focussed on one side of the stage, and Agarkar, making like a catwalk model, minced onto the stage.

His expression was -- what's a good simile, now? -- hmmm... a rabbit, caught in the beam of a car headlight.

A lopsided grin, a half wave, a half bow -- with these gestures, he responded to Pepsi Foods vice president (corporate communications) Deepak Jolly's fulsome introduction, and superlative-strewn announcement that Agarkar would now join what Jolly called the Pepsi cricket family.

"It is a great honour," said Agarkar -- his expression indicative more of embarrassment than honour, though -- "to be chosen to be alongside Azhar, Sachin, Ajay and Rahul for team Pepsi."

Applause.

Jolly then told us that this was merely the beginning, that Team Pepsi would in time come to comprise the cream of Indian cricketing talent, that besides sponsoring cricket matches and tournaments, the soft drink giant had all kinds of plans for the betterment of Indian cricket, and so on, and so forth...

Errrr... what plans? Like, say, a sponsored cricket academy?

"You wait and see," says Jolly. "I promise you that you will be the first to know."

Since I had, about five minutes back, overheard him making that identical promise to another journo, I took that one with the proverbial salt, shaker and all.

Press conferences in Madras tended, earlier, to be rather tame affairs. But now, with there being more liquor shops than tea or paan shops in the TN capital, this one was a pretty wet do...

While accepting my rum, I succumbed to a momentary sense of mischief which prompted me, when the bar-bloke asked me what I wanted to mix it with, to respond: "Coke!"

I got the weirdest of looks, and a "Sorry, sir, we have only Pepsi."

He hadn't told me, I never would have known that would I, now?

Meanwhile, some of the younger souls in the Pepsi Foods entourage cleared away the chairs and, with the music blaring, went around urging everyone and his uncle to "Come on, ENJOY!"

Ajay Jadeja, predictably, 'enjoyed' -- the guy's pretty deft with the feet on the dance floor, the quintessential party boy.

Saurav Ganguly, who for all his grace at the crease is all left-feet (for a left-hander, is the appropriate expression, when referring to a natural leftie, 'all right feet'?) when it comes to dancing, was pestered by Jadeja to show them all how to do an Ollallalawhatever, like in the Kingfisher jingle the two gyrate to. Wisely, Ganguly declined the commission.

Azhar -- who has, throughout this camp, seemed incredibly relaxed and light-hearted -- laughingly agreed to try and imitate his regular vice captain, at which Jadeja promptly performed a rather complicated little step and asked his captain if he could top that.

Azhar grinned, and went, "Arre, kyon satathe ho, bhai??" then went into his own less complicated dance routine. Meanwhile, I caught Sidhu looking down rather woefully at his blistered feet -- rather in the manner of saying, if only my feet didn't hurt, I would show you guys how a balle-balle boy does it.

The party was just warming up when it was invaded. By a huge horde of cricket fans who had somehow managed to elude the security at the gate, and rushed into the ballroom when the guards at the door there were distracted by the fun and games inside.

On cue, the cricketers were ushered out through the back door... which, I learnt from a steward, led into the kitchen. No matter, they apparently preferred the heat of the kitchens to that of autograph-hunters...

So off they scurried, via the kitchen and the service elevator, to their rooms. Minutes later, the third floor of the Taj Coromandel was a vista of closed doors on which were hung, like so many festoons, Do Not Disturb signs...