The 13 students from various schools under the DHiE programme, waited with palpable excitement, in the Deccan Herald-Prajavani premises, armed with questions to fire off in a celebrity mock press conference. The celebrity in question was Javagal Srinath.

They received their answers they received, along with a dollop of advice and a lot of humour as well. Srinath first eased the students into their journalist roles, explaining to them how newspapers and players — cricketers in this case — help each other out. He even quizzed a few enthusiastic journalist wannabes on their opinion of journalism and even elaborated on the time he spent in the media.

Then, the kids began their volley of questions. Not a breath was wasted as Srinath was probed about his early years, his journey as a cricketer and the time he spent on the Indian team.

The kids soaked in his words like sponges, nodding at his every sentence and supplementing his answers with more questions.

Some of them brought out the humour in the pace bowler. Subrat Kumar from Miranda Public School sought Srinath’s opinion on the recent Harbhajan issue, and after the bowler denied comment, asked him to justify aggression in the game. “The definition of aggression must be understood,” Srinath said. “It is seen in the way you bowl or bat, not in actions. Actions don’t get wickets; if they did, then any number of dancers would be selected for the Indian team!”

Srinath also had a lot of opinions to offer in reply to questions about Dhoni’s captaincy and Yuvraj’s long term placement in the team. “Dhoni is a good student of the game. Despite his late entry, he has a lot of maturity which was probably why he was offered captaincy and not Yuvraj. Yuvi has proven capability, but if he goes out of form, it would be very difficult to get back in the game. That is why I think he is being given a long rope,” he said.

Srinath, now a match referee, had tons of advice to give. To a question from S Aditya of JSS Public School, he said: “Speed is not the end all of fast bowling. Irfan may not be able to clock a speed of 150 kmph, but he can move the ball. If a fast bowler is able to do this and clock a great speed, it’s a deadly combination,” he said.