leeds from young mansur ali khan pataudis steely determination after his terrible car accident to anil kumbles dignity and virat kohlis levelheaded approach jeffrey archers pristine love for indian cricket remains intactthe best selling english author is keenly following the world cupfor him current indian skipper kohli is levelheaded and intelligent and kumbles dignified stance during the monkeygate scandal is a lesson for one and allarcher the creator of the famous kane and abel series had also written a short story century whose main protagonist many believed was based on tiger pataudii have been very privileged to have known nawab of pataudi when we were both studying at oxford and we remained friends through that time quite recently i had done a big charity auction for his wife sharmila tagore and daughter and i admire them both archer told pti during an exclusive interviewduring their days at oxford archer would often bump into pataudi at universitys sports club vincentsi was an athlete and i captained oxford and ran for great britain we met at vincents he was very aware of my love for cricket i have been a passionate follower of cricket all my life said the former british mptiger pataudis grit after his car accident fascinates archer to this day and he fondly remembers the man whom he calls last among old fashioned amateurswhen tiger had that accident i had assumed that he would never play cricket again i underestimated his amazing character and determinationhe was the last among old fashioned amateurs who wouldnt just give up and go away he just got on with it the fact that he was able to play the game at the world level was staggering and made him a great hero at oxford someone whom we all looked up to he recollectedhe has over the years interacted with the top indian cricketers from tendulkar to kohlii have more recently met virat kohli and found him a very level headed intelligent captain who i think is going to break all the records in the book he feltbut while the tiger remains a sentimental favourite archer admires kumble because of the way he conducted himself after harbhajan singh faced sanctions for his alleged racist abuse of andrew symondswell kumble is one of the best captains we have ever seen i thought his behaviour in australia when ricky ponting was the australian captain was an example to all of us he behaved with such dignity that he became an exampleone of his favourite test matches is the epic clash between india and australia in kolkata back in 2001vvs laxman and rahul dravid remained at the crease one whole day and it remains one of the greatest test matches ever played archer rememberedboth dravid and laxman are serious readers and i found them to be very intelligent peopleso do all cricketers read your bookscricketers yes but their wives even more so i mean tendulkars wife kumbles wife have been passionate supporters of my workhe was in