India, April 10 -- Until afternoon, April 9, folks were still trying to work out the exact location of the Wankhede Stadium stand to be named after Ravi Shastri. 'Close to the press box', Shastri wrote coyly in the Indian Express with the MCA president Ajinkya Naik's media release stating, "Level 1 below the press box." More confusion. Below the press box is the commentators' box and the sight screen, but no public stands. Did that then mean left or right of the press box? Above or below? Looking out from the press box, on our right is the Sachin Tendulkar stand and on our left is the North Stand, Wankhede's Crazy Central. Woaah - you don't say. Was RJS going to get the entire North Stand named after him? They used to be 'hai-hai'-ing him from there at one point and getting the stand named after you has to be the ultimate STFU across time. No matter where, there is something authentic about naming even a section of the North Stand after Shastri. Because that space is a reminder of the OG Shastri, Bombay cricketer through and through. There's the Shastri who clambered up those stands to watch matches or hoisted his kit bag and jumped onto passing trains from. To Matunga, to Don Bosco, to Podar. There's also that Shastri who became the first to hit six sixes in an over after Gary Sobers at this very ground. There's the senior pro who led a Bombay team of younglings that won the Ranji Trophy in 1993-94 after ten seasons. Right here in the final versus Bengal. There's all of this in the man who still carries traces of Matunga, Don Bosco, Podar and Wankhede wherever he goes, what he sounds like and what he believes in. There's the travelling commentator on tour who calls an Indian player one evening to help him sort out his difficulties overseas. The coach who makes players believe they can walk on water. Which is what winning a Test series in Australia felt like, but to be a part of two? Today Shastri though is India's omnipresent Cricket Voice, baritone-ing from our TV screens with his 'Kasa kai, Mumbai' and post-toss arm flourishes. He's the media personality with his outrageous man-about-town ads, business partnerships with his former captain and instareels with Ferrari honchos. The guy who has a - what else - hospitality suite named after him at Lord's. All that stuff may have been bit parts of what has led us to this day. But the stands and the thousands who have watched cricket since the Wankhede held its first match (Bombay vs Baroda) in November 1974 know that Shastri belongs there, as much a part of that space as its turf, its girders, its air. Shastri was 12 at the time Wankhede hosted its first match and remembers being at the game. He grew into cricket and became part of a lineage that came from an older Wankhede, before its post-2011 breezy, open, soaring eastern and western stands. That older version was zero-aesthetic grey, clunky, a steaming cauldron closed in on all sides, a 'fortress' well before that word was invoked across IPL venues. Shastri's Bombay/ Mumbai cricketing DNA was always a few strands removed from its classic batting school. It was closer to the mud of the maidan and its ethos of pragmatic survivalism, which gave rise to the his refusal to surrender. It gave Shastri a clear-eyed assessment of abilities and ensured he identified the routes to making the most of them. He could transform his India game from frontline left-arm spinner No. 10 in the line-up to Test opener in England, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. His first-class record for Bombay, India and Glamorgan - 13,202 runs (3,830 in 80 Tests), 34 centuries (11 for India) and 66 fifties, 509 wickets (151 international) - has heft. His ODI performances include Man of the Series in India's best result between 1983 and 2011 - the 1985 World Championship of Cricket victory. All this before retirement and commentary made him better known for "tracer bullets" and "Dhoni finishes it off in style." But what if he'd been playing today? In the IPL? Would his career have been as impressive? Hell, yeah. He'd have upped his six-hitting, obsessively worked on his dot-ball options and aimed to become the most valuable all-rounder in the game. His old teammates say the young Shastri always knew what he wanted and where he wanted to go. So while he could unfurl a range of shots for Bombay and Glamorgan, he chose to pick the Chapati against top-notch Test bowlers. But his appetite for a scrap, the on-the-nose-nous and the dead-eye nerve during a game's hazardous end? That belongs to a timeless part of the self. So yes, I'd bet Ravi Shastri would still be doing his rooster walk to the crease and max-ing it. Naming that Wankhede stand after him is just so right....