Navjot Singh Sidhu
 | |
Source: [1], 4 February 2006 |
Navjot Singh Sidhu | |
|---|---|
| |
| Member of Parliament | |
| Constituency | Amritsar |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 20 October 1963 Amritsar, Punjab |
| Political party | BJP |
| Residence | Amritsar |
As of September 22, 2006 Source: [2] | |
Navjot Singh Sidhu ⓘ (born October 20, 1963) is former Indian cricket batsman, who took up television commentary and, more recently, politics following his retirement from the game. He was born in Patiala in Punjab. The one-liners that are the trademark of his commentary are now popularly called "Sidhuisms" in India. Sidhu was elected to the Lok Sabha from Amritsar in 2004 on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket.
Cricketing career
A classy batsman capable of both dogged defence and devastating strokeplay, Navjot Singh Sidhu had a long and volatile international career from 1983 to 1999
He made an uneventful international debut against the West Indies at Ahmedabad in 1983 scoring just 19 runs in his debut Test match. He was given another chance in that series but failed again. He was selected for the 1987 cricket World Cup in India scoring 73 on his One-day International debut in a losing effort against Australia. He scored 50s in 4 of the 5 World Cup 1987 matches in which he batted, failing in the semifinal against England. His maiden ODI century came against Pakistan in Sharjah in 1989 while his 134 against England at Gwalior in 1993 was his highest ODI score and the innings which he called his best when he retired in 1999.
It was during the later part of his career that he was recognised as a classy Test batsman when he scored over 500 Test runs in a year thrice (1993, 1994 and 1997). His only Test double century came during India's 1997 tour of West Indies. In 1994, he scored 885 ODI runs.
He announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in December 1999. He played over 50 Test matches and over 100 ODIs scoring over 7,000 international runs. He has 27 first class centuries to his credit in a career that spanned 18 years.
Some of the nicknames he earned were "Sixer Sidhu", Sherry and "Jonty Singh" (with respect to his improved fielding in his late career, Jonty Rhodes being the best fielder at that time.) Toward the end of his career, when his form went belly-up he became known as "Puttu", a name that has carried on to his commentary career.
Other Statistics
| Class | Matches | Innings | Not Outs | Runs | Highest Score | Average | 100s | 50s | Catches |
| First-class | 157 | 228 | 12 | 9571 | 286 | 44.31 | 27 | 50 | 50 |
| List A | 205 | 191 | 19 | 7186 | 139 | 41.77 | 10 | 55 | 31 |
Commentator and TV Personality
Sidhu started his career as a commentator for NIMBUS when India toured Sri Lanka in 2001. He however rose to prominence as a commentator with ESPN-Star. His outspoken style and his all-too-famous Sidhuisms saw him become an international icon. However, he took his outspoken style a bit too far and was sacked by ESPN-Star around August 2003 - allegedly for using the F-Word on air. The exact details and reasons behind his contract termination remain unclear even today and Sidhu has said on a television interview that he bore no hard feelings towards ESPN-Star and even thanked them for their role in kickstarting his commentating career.
Subsequent to his sacking, he went on to commentate for Ten Sports. He also regularly appears as a cricket analyst on various channels. Of late he also figured as a judge on a television program - "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge".
Cyrus Sahukar hosts a program on MTV "Piddhu the Great" where he is disguised as Piddhu, a lookalike of Sidhu. The one-liners in the program, similar to Sidhuisms, are called "Pidhuisms".
He is currently nominated as "MTV India's Youth Icon", results are yet to be declared.
Politics
Sidhu won on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket from the Amritsar seat in the Indian general elections, 2004.
External links
