Why did Shane Bond play

He was not injured.

Fitness aside, can you put an age to Shane Bond? Not that he’s timeless, but he doesn’t look any particular age. Almost like his twin, Putin. Can you put an age to Putin?

Even Bond doesn’t know he’s 34. It’s like Afridi doesn’t know he’s forty or Jayasuriya doesn’t know he’s a hundred or Sachin doesn’t know he’s not eighteen. And what the hell is age but a number that lies.

But Bond is 34, that’s what his birth certificate says. What this cert doesn’t say is that he’s played 17 tests strewn all over the Lord of the Rings sets, and a pocketful of one-dayers.

Shane Bond returned to play Sri Lanka in a twenty20. He returned in body, not in spirit. Bond doesn’t have spirit. If he was an alcoholic, even then he wouldn’t have any spirit.

He is a limp biscuit. Dipped in a Delhi ICL team, that was so bad, to conform he had to be equally bad. Ditto with Lara and his Mumbai Champs.

Bond’s ICL jaunt was called Delhi Giants and they made a midget out of him. They lost everything, except maybe games against the Champs, which both teams lost.

This of course cannot be proven as there are no records of the ICL. For the record, Bond’s non-existent spirit was broken by Dilshan, four fours of his first over.

Later, standing alongside Vettori he seemed small, almost like a left arm spinner. Vettori though, still didn’t look like a quick bowler.

Bond pulled it back, but not because of his bowling, the zip was missing, and the buttons too. He bowled yorkers that weren’t, speeds that were ICL-like at best.

There was a smallness to him, and that was sad. He just needs to play India again. On conditions of anonymity, Vettori told me, 'if not for India I would be half the bowler I am.'

That would be the bitter half.

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