A high dose of cricket and a modicum of Bollywood marked the 45th session of An Author’s Afternoon with Guest Author, Devendra Prabhudesai. Former cricketer Raju Mukherjee engaged Devendra in tell-all conversation.

Presented by Shree Cement and organized by Prabha Khaitan Foundation in association with Taj Bengal, t2 and Siyahi, the session turned out to be a sporty affair. Devendra, a sports biographer and former BCCI head of media relations and public affairs, batted his way through the googlies and bouncers hurled at him.

Anecdotes and how he got to write his book Hero: A biography of Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was very interesting. Fortune smiled when Devendra changed tracks from an event management professional to join the BCCI. He grabbed the chance to script over the docu-films made on Master Blaster’s 100th and 200th Test. Devendra’s innings as a writer began with An Umpire Remembers – autobiography of Piloo Reporter. Sequels of biographies about cricket dignitaries started in 2005 with The Nice Guy Who Finished First, dedicated to Rahul Dravid, and continued with Sunil Gavaskar SMG published in 2009. Sachin, is the latest addition to this category.

The author took the audience through the Sachin era in the backdrop of an India welcoming liberalization, satellite communication and a progressive mindset. For the writer this particular number of the biography series seems to be most personal as his generation grew up with the God of Cricket. He read out excerpts from the book that highlighted some of the historical matches of Sachin. Moving away from cricket, Prabhudesai said his new-found interest was some of the all-time atrocious scenes from Hindi films. He promised, he would one day pen down these rip roarers in a book.