Politicians display their wicket ways

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: As the India-Pakistan One-dayer in Lahore began to peak on Thursday evening, chief minister Sushilkumar Shinde fidgeted with his cellphone. <br /><br />“I haven’t seen the match even for a minute. You can see how hopelessly busy I am,’’ Shinde told this newspaper at Varsha, his official residence.<br /><br />Besieged by partymen and government officials, Shinde tried to straddle the two worlds of politics and administration, ignoring cricket —his long-time passion.“Many are clean bowled here,’’ he told a party leader on the mobile, referring doubtless to ticket aspirants for the Lok Sabha elections.<br /><br />A noisy cheer filtered into the CM’s office when Pakistani cricketer Taufeeq Umar was despatched to the pavilion by Irfan Pathan. A friend promptly rang up to offer Shinde a quick update on the Umar debacle. “I have been on my toes since eight in the morning. I wish I could have watched some of the match. Such has been the work pressure that I had lunch at 4 p.m.,’’ said Shinde as he dug into a plate of <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">bhel</span>.<br /><br />Meanwhile, the Shiv Sena troika—Bal Thackeray, Uddhav Thackeray and Raj Thackeray —remained glued to the television set, devouring details of the match.<br /><br />Before he got down to addressing a press conference in a south Mumbai hall, state BJP chief Gopinath Munde instructed party colleague Bhai Girkar to keep him posted about the run rate.<br /><br />“It’s been a great match. So far, India has been doing very well,’’ saidManohar Joshi, who took time off from the campaign trail in north-central Mumbai to watch the match on TV.</div> </div>