New Delhi: A la Paul the 'predicting' octopus
in football, he has an uncanny knack of correctly predicting
the future of cricketers in the sport, and claims to have
followers who will vouch for the accuracy of his prophesies.
Narendra Bunde, a resident of Nagpur and a 'cricket
astrologer' by profession, had "foretold" some months ago that
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, now 36, would be playing in the 2019
World Cup in England, at a time when many questioned his place
in the limited overs game.
Bunde, who turned to predicting the future of cricketers
in 2006, was a jeweller before that.
Asked how he got into astrology, he says he had taught
himself to see the future by reading books on the subject and
picking the brains of renowned astrologers.
Among those who have taken his advice are Ganguly, Murali
Karthik, S Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh
Raina. Even actress Preity Zinta had sought his guidance when
her IPL franchise Kings XI Punjab was going through a torrid
time.
The Indian women's team reached the final of the ICC
World Cup last year, and Bunde says skipper Mithali Raj, too,
took tips from him. And so was Vidarbha captain Faiz Fazal,
under whose leadership, Vidarbha won their first-ever Ranji
Trophy recently.
"I spoke to Faiz Fazal and asked him to wear number 24 in
the domestic one-day games. He did that.
"As for Mithali, I asked her to wear number 33 jersey and
it eventually proved lucky for her."