Osho, the answer to a cricket prayer...

Osho Rajneesh, the saint of sex, might now well become the saviour of Indian cricket -- that is, if things work out the way Osho Home wants it to.

Subscribe to the late acharya's dynamic meditation, it holds, and saved will be Sachin and company. For, what the team needs now is not less cricket, not more fitness -- but pure, simple, unadulterated concentration.

And -- of course! -- there is nothing to beat Rajneesh's meditation therapy for that.

"The hour-long dynamic meditation is a cathartic technique designed for the modern man burdened with tensions and frustrations," says Dr Rajan Bhosale of Osho press relations, "It is being practiced the world over for the last 21 years. It will enable cricketers to exploit their full potential." Dr Bhosale, incidentally, is the son of former Maharashtra chief minister Babasaheb Bhosale.

Bhosale said he had offered his services to the Board of Control for Cricket in India before the team toured Sri Lanka, but was ignored. "I am repeating the offer in the light of forthcoming matches," he said.

The BCCI -- alas! -- has not found the Osho offer stimulating enough.

UNI