State Gazette

For long, he was a cross the channel carried. His persistent criticism of BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya made the powerful board send verbal feelers to the ESPN—"What are you doing about your commentators". At the risk of losing lucrative contracts from the BCCI, ESPN even muttered to Dalmiya about having a code of conduct for its commentators. Sidhu’s rather voluble comments on Indian cricketers during the World Cup provoked skipper Saurav Ganguly to call him "a joke" at a press conference. Players even refused to be interviewed by ESPN. The then Kenyan coach, Sandeep Patil, had also refused to speak to the channel saying "but isn’t my team just a lollipop", deriving the expression from Sidhu’s evaluation of the newbie African side that eventually reached the semi-finals. Sidhu describes the Alan Wilkins episode as "a small misunderstanding within the family". In a somewhat mellow mood, he says he wouldn’t worry about the future "because my life is a day-tight compartment". And his past "is only a bucketful of ashes".