Calcutta: The Sri Lankans must be enjoying it all, wondering how such luck came their way.

For, even if Muttiah Muralidharan can’t get Sachin Tendulkar out, Kumar Sangakkara can expect much help from Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena.

The Sena, after all, has put Sachin under pressure ever since his perfectly correct stance some 10 days ago: That he’s a proud Maharashtrian, but sees himself as an Indian first.

It’s a stand which should actually have been applauded. Instead, the Sena is using that straight-from-the-heart assertion for its narrow ends.

Thanks probably in part (at least) to the Sena-created ruckus, Sachin managed four in the first innings of the opening Test, in Motera. In the second, he remained unbeaten on a match-saving 100.

More than the Sri Lankans, that Sachin innings appears to have upset the Sena. So, within 48 hours of his 43rd Test hundred, came a more virulent attack in the party’s mouthpiece, Saamna.

The second Test, in Kanpur, begins on Tuesday and even somebody of Sachin’s mental strength is bound to be affected by the assault, no matter how laughable some of the issues raised.

Sachin must also be wondering why nobody, except cricket administrator-cum-politician Rajeev Shukla, has said a word in his defence.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) should have been the first to shield Sachin, not with a political comment, but by simply saying it was proud of him and his achievements.

Far from anything like that, the BCCI distanced itself from the views expressed by Shukla, a member of the Rajya Sabha.

“Look, I myself asked the BCCI to clarify that I’d been speaking as a Congress spokesman and not that of the BCCI,” Shukla told The Telegraph on Monday, the day after he took on the Sena.

The BCCI president, Shashank Manohar (who doesn’t use a cellphone), couldn’t be contacted till late in the evening.

Even IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi (a BCCI vice-president, incidentally), who is usually so visible on the TV, hadn’t come out with a word on Sachin, who has single-handedly taken the level of interest in cricket to phenomenal heights.

The IPL has been a direct beneficiary.

Manohar and his men, perhaps, expect Sachin to call a media conference in Kanpur and defend himself!

Sachin, it may be recalled, had jumped to Harbhajan Singh’s defence in the days immediately after the Sydney Test row 22 months ago. His support, not merely because the off-spinner is considered close to him, did make a huge difference.

Then, back in 2003, Sachin had come out on Mohammed Kaif’s side after the batsman’s house was attacked during the early stages of Team India’s World Cup campaign.

Now...

“With a Test hours away, this isn’t the right time to check on Sachin’s feelings... But, knowing him, I can tell you that he would be feeling very let down by the BCCI,” is how a confidant put it, from Mumbai.

The question doing the rounds is whether the BCCI is ‘scared’ of the Sena as its HQ (Cricket Centre) is in Mumbai, where the party still has enough lumpen elements to engage in a round of ransacking.

Eighteen years ago, the Sena vandalised the Wankhede Stadium wicket, forcing the cancellation of a short tour by Imran Khan’s Pakistan.

More recently, in January 1999, the Sena attacked the old BCCI HQ, then at the Brabourne Stadium. Among the trophies damaged was the most cherished (Prudential) World Cup, won in 1983.

In a smart move, Jagmohan Dalmiya, who used to call the shots in the BCCI, got the HQ temporarily shifted to the Eden Gardens. It conveyed a message, which wasn’t lost on anybody, least of all the Sena.

That incident, by the way, occurred in the lead up to Pakistan’s tour of India. Fortunately, the Wasim Akram-led team didn’t decide to stay at home.

It helped, of course, that the Prime Ministers, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Nawaz Sharif, didn’t want the tour derailed.

Footnote: More than being pleased, Sourav Ganguly must be rather embarrassed at the Bengaliness certificate given to him by Sena MP Sanjay Raut, Saamna’s executive editor. Indeed, a praiseworthy feature of Sourav’s captaincy was that he never played the regional card. Not that he couldn’t have.