Playing It My Way: My Autobiography (20 page)

A crushing loss in the first tour game was the worst possible start for the world’s best team and was more than we could have hoped for. We now needed to carry the momentum forward into the first Test match in Chennai. Of course, I was well aware that the Australians had not played all their cards against Mumbai. Even when we were attacking Shane Warne, not once did he bowl from round the wicket into the rough outside leg stump. I was certain he would do so at the first available opportunity in Chennai, and I even said as much in the post-match press conference in Mumbai. The series was nicely set up.

Having played a lot of cricket in Chennai, I knew that the physical preparation in the lead-up to a Chennai Test has to be different from normal. You have to prepare your body for the heat and humidity well in advance and I always did so at least thirty-six hours before the match by drinking a lot more water than normal. The extra water intake was particularly important, because you lose so much fluid during matches at the Chidambaram Stadium.

Nowadays, unlike in the late 1980s and 1990s, when there wasn’t much research about players’ diets and training schedules, cricket is much more sophisticated about such matters. There are specialized dieticians who draw up charts of what players can or can’t eat. After long and arduous batting stints, players take ice baths and drink specially prepared shakes to rehydrate the body and replace lost energy. For example, I remember Paddy Upton, our high-performance trainer, asking me to drink two glasses of a shake made of crushed dry fruits after a particularly draining innings at Gwalior in 2010.

At Chennai, we won the toss and opted to bat first. It was an important toss to win, as the ball was expected to turn in the fourth innings and we were playing three spinners in Anil Kumble, Rajesh Chauhan and Venkatapathy Raju. Despite a good start, with the top three of Mongia, Sidhu and Dravid all scoring fifties, we lost our way in the middle of the first innings and failed to push home the advantage, getting bowled out for a modest 257. Batting at number four, I managed just four runs and fell to Warne. I hit him for a boundary and then tried to repeat the shot, only to get an outside edge to Mark Taylor at slip. I was extremely disappointed with myself for not playing myself in and was determined to make amends in the second innings.

Our bowlers, in particular Kumble and Raju, did well to get the first eight Australian wickets for 201. It seemed we had a good chance of taking a first-innings lead, but we were frustrated when the Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy and off-spinner Gavin Robertson, the debutant, put together a very good partnership. They added 96 runs between them, and Australia eventually gained a 71-run advantage. It seemed a crucial lead and at a dinner organized by former BCCI president AC Muthiah, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, a former India captain and leading off-spinner of the 1970s, said to me that it would be very difficult for us to get back into the match. He said that he thought there wasn’t enough time left in the game to make up the deficit, set a target and finally bowl Australia out to win the match. I replied confidently that there was still plenty of time and that I was sure we would be able to turn things round.

Before the start of our second innings I remember saying in the dressing room that it was the responsibility of the batsmen to put their hands up and try to score 75 runs each for the team. You don’t always need to set the bar really high and demand a hundred. I thought that scoring 75 in the second innings at Chennai would be good enough to set up the match.

When Sidhu was out for an important 64, I walked out to bat at 115–2, in effect 44–2 after deducting the deficit of 71 runs, and as on many occasions in my career I had Rahul Dravid for company in the middle. I started out watchfully and was soon into my groove. As expected, Shane Warne started to bowl round the wicket and I instantly took the attack to him and hit him over midwicket. From an individual perspective it was a defining moment in the game. We couldn’t afford to lose another wicket, but we also couldn’t go too much on the defensive.

Rahul and I added more than a hundred runs, to set up a strong platform. By the time Rahul was dismissed for another well-played half-century, I felt in control. I went on the attack and scored at a fair clip, hitting fours and sixes with regularity. Azhar gave me good support and we also added over a hundred runs, at almost five runs an over, a potentially match-winning partnership.

When we declared, I was not out on 155, the first-innings lead had been nullified and we were in with a great chance of winning the match, having set the Australians a target of 348 on a turning track. It was certainly one of my better hundreds and what made the sensation sweeter was that we proceeded to bowl the Australians out for 168, with Kumble taking four wickets, and we won the match by 179 runs. It was a tremendous start and, to add to my delight, I was Man of the Match. I had made up for getting out to Warne cheaply in the first innings of the match.

Importantly, we had performed as a unit and most of the senior members had played their parts to perfection. Anil had taken eight wickets in the game while Navjot Sidhu, opening the batting, had done a good job in both innings. He had attacked Warne from the start of our second innings and had set the game up for the other batsmen. Rahul too batted well in each innings and pocketed a couple of important catches at slip. We had shown good fighting spirit and that, more than anything, augured well for the team for the second Test match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata later that month.

If Chennai was a rollercoaster, we were in control in Kolkata from the start. Australia won the toss at Eden Gardens but failed to press home an early advantage, losing four top-order wickets within the first hour of play. Srinath bowled a fine opening spell to take three wickets and Sourav too chipped in with the wicket of Mark Taylor. Despite a brief period of Australian resurgence under Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting, we kept our nerve and bowled them out for 233 in the first innings.

Our batsmen followed up with some big runs and for a rare occasion in Test cricket all first five batsmen passed 75, with Azhar going on to score a hundred at his favourite venue. I scored 79 and once again took the attack to Shane Warne, who went wicketless in his forty-two overs, conceding 147 runs. The plan against Warne was working and without his wickets the Australians were in trouble. I remember one particular shot against Warne on day two. In my determination to attack him, I hadn’t noticed that it was the last over before tea and I hit him for a big six over long on, which I normally wouldn’t have risked so close to a break. It just goes to show how hard you had to concentrate to cope with Warne.

We knew, of course, that the Australians were all excellent players, despite being at the receiving end for the time being, and we knew that it was important to keep them under pressure throughout the match. A champion team needs only a small window of opportunity to stage a fightback, something I had learnt over the years. If the Australians were on the back foot, you couldn’t allow them the whiff of an opportunity to stage a recovery. We needed to be ruthless and we were. Having scored 633 in our first innings, we let Kumble and Srinath do the rest on a track that was offering variable bounce. Australia collapsed for 181 in their second innings, giving us one of our biggest Test wins. More importantly, we were 2–0 up in the three-Test series against the best team in the world and were justly proud of the achievement.

In the final match of the series our team included a teenaged debutant in off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. I scored a big hundred in the first innings and once again we managed to put the Australian bowlers under pressure. Though Warne picked up three wickets, he also went for a lot of runs. To his credit, he was always in the game, despite being attacked. In fact, as I played out the last over of the first day against him, I had to keep telling myself to concentrate till the very last ball was bowled. A true great, Warne would not let you relax for a single delivery.

Mark Waugh batted brilliantly in the Australian first innings, scoring an unbeaten 153, and Michael Kasprowicz, the fast bowler, picked up a five-wicket haul in our second innings to set up the match. I was caught and bowled by Kasprowicz for 31, playing a ball early, and we collapsed for a paltry 169. There was no doubt about it: Australia had played better than us in Bangalore and had shown what they were made of. For our part, we were disappointed at not closing out the series on a winning note.

It was one of the most intense series I played in my career, and one of the most personally successful. I had scored close to 450 runs at an average of 111. Weeks of rigorous practice had paid off and it was a deeply satisfying feeling.

The Test series was followed by a one-day tri-series, with Zimbabwe as the third team. Our first match was against Australia at Kochi on 1 April, and it remains a match I have extremely fond memories of. I was opening the batting again in one-day cricket by this stage but unfortunately got out early. Luckily it did not matter, with Ajay Jadeja batting well in the middle order for a hundred and taking us past 300.

Australia got off to a flier. Adam Gilchrist, the best wicketkeeper-batsman of our generation, went after the bowling and they cruised to 100 in just twelve overs. It was apparent that if they played out the full fifty overs they’d win the game. Midway through the innings, I was brought on to bowl and I started bowling off-spin to the left-handers and leg-spin to the right-handers.

It’s one of those strange things, but for some reason sometimes a batsman just does not like the sight of a particular bowler. In my case, I was never comfortable facing Hansie Cronje, who got me out on a number of occasions with his medium pace. Even when I was in control against the likes of Allan Donald, Hansie would somehow get the better of me and I’d get out to him in the most unexpected ways. So you don’t always need to be a front-line bowler to trouble a particular batsman – and that’s what happened between me and Steve Waugh. Throughout my career I had a feeling Steve wasn’t comfortable against my leg-spin. At Kochi, I bowled a perfect leg-spinner to him and he lobbed the ball straight back to me.

I was elated at the dismissal and it was a big moment in the game. It was the opening we needed to put the pressure back on the Australians. The other big wicket that gave me a lot of satisfaction was that of Michael Bevan, a very effective batsman in limited-overs cricket, who was constantly trying to come down the wicket to negate the turn. I had warned Nayan Mongia, our wicketkeeper, that I’d bowl a quick one down the leg side if I saw Bevan try that against me. The ploy worked and Bevan was stumped off a wide ball down the leg side.

This was one of those rare matches when every ball was coming out of the hand perfectly, and I even had a fielder at slip past the thirty-over mark. The odd thing is that over the course of my career I found that whenever I practised hard at bowling leg-spin, I could never land the ball properly. And yet sometimes when I hadn’t practised for months it just landed on the spot at crucial times in a match. In the end I decided to bowl leg-spin in the nets as and when I felt like it, without thinking too much about the technical aspects. In any case, Anil Kumble once explained to me that to bowl leg-spin consistently, I needed to hold my shoulder while bowling. What he meant was that I needed to have my fingers, arm and shoulder position aligned for longer. It was something I could never get the hang of, so I just left it to my natural ability, and I rarely bowled more than three overs at a stretch in a match unless I was bowling really well. This gave me licence to experiment and I could give the ball a rip if I wished to. At Kochi it all worked beautifully. I finished with 5–32 and Australia were bowled out for 268 in the forty-sixth over. We had won the match by 41 runs.

We continued the good form against the Australians in the next ODI at the Green Park stadium in Kanpur on 7 April. It was a low-scoring encounter, with the Australians setting us 222 to chase. The pitch was keeping low and I had figured out that the best option was to be aggressive at the start. I got another hundred in this match and remember one particular shot against Tom Moody. Even before he had released the ball, I stepped out and he followed me. The ball was down the leg side and, having stepped out of my crease, I wasn’t in the best position to meet the delivery. I connected on the full but played it slightly off-balance. To my surprise, the ball landed in the stands, way beyond the boundary. Later in the innings I came down the wicket to Warne and this time the ball hit the bottom of my bat. Warne immediately screamed ‘Catch it!’ – only to see the ball soar over the long-on fielder and land 10 yards behind him for another six. I hit seven in all and we won the game comfortably, to book a spot in the final, which we unfortunately lost to Australia. It was disappointing after winning all the group matches and it resulted in an imperfect end to the tour.

Soon after the series was over we went to Sharjah for yet another tri-series, with Australia and New Zealand. It is a tournament I remember well because I played some of my best cricket and because of an incident that took place on the flight out to Sharjah. The Indian team included two relative newcomers, Harbhajan Singh and Harvinder Singh, the medium-fast bowler. The flight attendant asked both of them if they wanted soup. Not very good with English at the time, Harvinder may not have understood the question. I overheard Harvinder tell Bhajji that it was prudent just to take what was being served. Then Harvinder, trying to figure out what to add to his soup, ended up adding sugar-free sweetener instead of salt. Bhaji, who always enjoyed a laugh, was aware of what Harvinder had done and kept asking him if he was enjoying his food! Harvinder was too embarrassed to admit his mistake and so he pretended to like it.