Eka Sidhu

[Tyler Bannowsky]

NavjotSingh Sidhu (born 20 October 1963) is an Indian politician from the Indian National Congress, television personality and retired international cricketer. He is the former President of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee. Formerly, he was the Minister of Tourism and Cultural Affairs in the state government of State of Punjab.[1][2][3] Sidhu joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2004 and contested the general election from Amritsar that year. He won the election and held the seat till 2014 winning also the next election. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2016 from Punjab before he resigned from the position the same year and quit the party. In 2017, he joined the Indian National Congress and was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly from Amritsar East. He lost in 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election from Amritsar East Assembly constituency.[4][5]

In 1988, Sidhu was involved in road rage incident of assault and causing the death of a man. In May 2022, the Supreme Court of India convicted him of voluntarily causing hurt (Section 323 of the Indian Penal Code) and sentenced him to 1 year rigorous imprisonment.[7] He was released after serving nearly 10 months of his sentence at Patiala Jail.[8]

Sidhu was born in Patiala, Punjab, India on 20 October 1963.[9][10] His father, Sardar Bhagwant Singh was a cricket player and wanted to his son to become a top-class cricketer. Sidhu is an alumnus of Yadavindra Public School, Patiala. He studied in Mumbai at HR College of Commerce and Economics.[11] Sidhu was elected to the Lok Sabha as a member from Amritsar in 2004 on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket; he later resigned, following his conviction in 2006.[12] After the Supreme Court stayed his conviction, he successfully contested the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, defeating his Congress rival, State Finance Minister Surinder Singla, by 77,626 votes. He is also the present president of World Jat Aryan Foundation.[13] He is a vegetarian.[14]

Former Pakistani cricketer and prime minister Imran Khan is one of his good friends.[17][18][19] Many times opposition politicians have criticised Sidhu for nepotism.[20][21][22][23] Fellow players from his cricketing career call him by his pet name Sherry.[24]

Sidhu made his first-class debut in November 1981 playing for Punjab against Services in Amritsar. Opening the innings, he made 51 before he was run out, as his team won the match by an innings.[25] He was called up to the Indian Test team in November 1983 after he scored a century (122) for the North Zone playing against the touring West Indies team the previous month. He was drafted to the Test team as a replacement to an injured Dilip Vengsarkar for the Third Test in Ahmedabad. He scored 20 runs in 90 minutes before he was booed out of the ground upon dismissal.[26] After another modest score in the final Test in Madras (now Chennai), he was dropped from the team.[27][28]

Sidhu was recalled to the national team only four years later, for the World Cup. Making his One Day International (ODI) debut against Australia in the first of the group stage games, he made a 79-ball 73, an innings that included five sixes and four fours. India went on to lose the match by a single run.[29] After the game, Australia's captain Allan Border had remarked: "When the bloke hits the ball, it stays hit."[26] In India's next game, against New Zealand, Sidhu scored a match-winning knock of 75, hitting four sixes and fours each, helping his team record its first win against them in World Cups.[30] Sidhu scored two more successive fifties, against Australia and Zimbabwe (51 and 55 respectively), and in the process, became the first player to record four successive half-centuries on debut in ODIs.[26] He carried his fine form into the Asia Cup the following year helping his team regain the trophy. He scored a half-century in the opening match against hosts Bangladesh before making another in the final (76 off 87 balls), receiving man of the match awards for both performances.[31] He finished the tournament scoring three fifties in four innings aggregating to 179 runs and was named man of the tournament.[32]

Sidhu made his return to the Test side after five years, replacing Mohinder Amarnath, with a century in first innings of the Bangalore Test against New Zealand in November 1988. Batting for 295 minutes, he made 116 in 195 balls, an innings that included four sixes and 12 fours, punishing mostly the spinners, before he followed it up with an unbeaten 43 in the second innings, helping his team win by 172 runs.[33][34][35] His second Test century came in the Fourth Test of India's Caribbean Tour later that season. He made 116 while opening the innings retiring hurt 30 minutes before end of play on day one after suffering from cramp in the legs. Wisden wrote, "Batting securely despite obvious flaws in technique, he reached his century in 324 minutes, off 216 balls, and hit eight fours."[36] The innings was considered one of his best considering that the Sabina Park wicket was among the fastest in the world.[37] He totalled 179 runs at an average of 29.83 for the series.[38]

Sidhu was recalled when England toured India later that season. He made his third Test hundred in the Second Test in Madras, scoring 106 off 273 balls while opening the innings. He struck a partnership with Tendulkar who made 165 taking their team to 560 before declaration. India went on to win the match and the series.[44] Sidhu particularly attacked spinner John Emburey in his innings that included nine fours.[45][46] He aggregated 235 in the series at 58.75.[47] Sidhu was India's best performer in the ODI series that followed, scoring 287 runs at 57.40. He played two match-winning knocks: a 76 in Chandigarh followed by an unbeaten 134 in Gwalior. He received man of the match awards for both performances.[48] The latter innings followed after India were down having lost two wickets with 4 runs on the board. Sidhu put together a 175-run stand with Mohammad Azharuddin for the third wicket.[49] En route to his century, Sidhu passed 2,000 runs in ODIs.[50] After India's series-leveling victory in the final game, Sidhu was given the man of the series award.[51]

His first ODI century came against Pakistan in Sharjah in 1989 while his 134 against England at Gwalior in 1993 was his highest ODI score and the innings which he called his best when he retired in 1999.[52] Sidhu told in an interview that an article criticising his dismal performance changed his cricketing life.[53]After a string of poor performances in 1983, Rajan Bala, a noted cricket columnist, wrote an article on him titled "Sidhu: The Strokeless Wonder" in the Indian Express. It was an epiphany that changed his life and he started taking his cricketing career seriously.[54]

Sidhu scored over 500 Test runs in a year thrice (1993, 1994 and 1997). His only Test double century came during India's 1997 tour of the West Indies. In 1994, he scored 884 ODI runs. Sidhu was the first Indian batsman to score more than 5 centuries in one day internationals.[56]

He announced his retirement from all forms of cricket in December 1999. He played 51 Test matches and over 100 ODIs scoring over 7,000 international runs. He scored 27 First class centuries in an 18-year career.[52]

Some of the nicknames he earned were "Sixer Sidhu" for his prolific batting performances and "Jonty Singh" with respect to his improved fielding in his late career, Jonty Rhodes being the best fielder at that time.[64]

Sidhu started his career as a commentator when India toured Sri Lanka in 2001. As a commentator, he was noted for his one-liners, which came to be known as "Sidhuisms". Sony Max that broadcast the games from the series launched a website, sidhuisms.com, where one-liners from his commentary were posted as "Sidhuism of the day" and contests held for users to pick his best one-liner.[67][68]

Sidhu also figured as a judge on the television programme The Great Indian Laughter Challenge. He also appeared in other similar programmes, such as Funjabi Chak De. He acted in a TV series called Kareena Kareena as himself. He was a contestant on the reality show Bigg Boss 6, and had to make an exit from the show on account of political grounds in 2012.[71][72][73]

In early 2019, Sidhu caused controversy when he was interpreted as supporting Pakistan, in his response to the Pulwama Terrorist Attack that killed 40 personnel of India's border security forces. He was asked to leave season 2 of The Kapil Sharma Show that he had been a permanent guest on for a long time, and was replaced by Archana Puran Singh.[74]

Cyrus Sahukar used to host a program on MTV, Piddhu the Great, where he is disguised as Piddhu, a lookalike of Sidhu. The one-liners in the program, similar to Sidhuisms, are called "Pidhuisms". A similar caricaturisation was performed on season 1 of The Kapil Sharma Show by Sunil Grover.[75]

Sidhu made a cameo appearance in the 2004 Hindi film Mujhse Shaadi Karogi as a commentator during a cricket match.[76] In the 2008 Punjabi language film Mera Pind, he appeared in a pivotal role alongside singer Harbhajan Mann, playing the role of a non-resident Indian who returns to his motherland despite living a successful life abroad.[77] His most recent film appearance came in 2015 in ABCD 2; another cameo that saw him play the permanent guest in Comedy Nights with Kapil.[78] Sidhu returned to commentary after a decade, for the 2024 season of the IPL, working for Star Sports.[79][80]

Sidhu won on a Bharatiya Janata Party ticket from the Amritsar seat in the 2004 Indian general elections. After resigning due to a court case against him, he stood again after the ruling stayed. He won a by-election with a good majority. In the 2009 general elections defeating Om Prakash Soni of INC by 6858 votes.[91] This was what Sidhu had to say after not being nominated as party's from Amritsar in the 2014 Indian general election.

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