You've come a long way, baby.

Marvan is somewhat of a family joke. For a guy who barely made it through post match interviews, it takes some doing to be wading through hours of pre, post and in between match conferences.

Yesterday, mother appeared from nowhere and pointed out, “areh, this is that…Atapattu, isko kya ho gaya, yeh bara smart ho gaya!”

We laughed, as one does, or two do, or most people would, at Atapattu’s expense.

Now the warped bit is I like Atapattu more than most people. More than Atapattu at least, anyway he doesn’t seem to like himself.

I enjoyed his miserable, grumbling onfield demeanour, playing cricket was a calamity for him. In spite of that he played 90 tests, 268 ODIs, today much retired, cricket is poorer richer without him.