Playing It My Way: My Autobiography (47 page)

Next up was a three-Test home series against New Zealand in November 2010. Though we won the series 1–0, my own form took a dip. Everyone had started talking about my fiftieth Test hundred and it became hard to concentrate. The crowds were trying to get behind me and in Hyderabad, during the second Test, people kept waving at me even when I was batting. My usual routine was to walk away towards the square-leg umpire after playing each ball, but the crowd at square leg went up every time I looked at them, which unsettled me. I know they meant well, but I couldn’t help thinking to myself, ‘They should let me bat in peace,’ and it wasn’t long before I was out.

When you are batting well, it’s good to have the crowd behind you like that. When you are struggling, it can make things doubly difficult. After the Hyderabad Test I said to Gary and Paddy that I was looking forward to the South Africa series because at least the crowds there wouldn’t obsess about it so much.

I actually had a good chance to get the century out of the way in Nagpur in the third Test, which started on 20 November. I was 57 not out overnight in our only innings and went in on the third day feeling pretty confident. It didn’t work out, however, as I lost my wicket after adding only four runs to my score, getting an edge off the left-arm seamer Andy McKay to the wicketkeeper. It was a ball that kicked up from short of a good length – the only one to do so all morning.

Playing South Africa in South Africa was always a difficult proposition. The nature of the pitches, an excellent fast-bowling attack and a good batting unit combined to make them a formidable opponent at home.

In a poor start to the series, we were bowled out for 136 in our first innings at Centurion Park on 16 December, with Morne Morkel taking five wickets, and it was almost impossible to stage a comeback from that position. I was the top scorer with 36 and I wasn’t playing too badly when a Dale Steyn delivery came in more than expected to trap me in front. South Africa put together a huge total in response, with a double century for Jacques Kallis and hundreds for Amla and de Villiers, and we were left to bat for almost two and a half days to save the game.

We at least put up more of a fight in the second innings. Dhoni and I were involved in a very good counter-attacking partnership of 172 and I was relieved to make my fiftieth Test hundred at last. We could see the South Africans getting frustrated and towards the end of the fourth day Dale Steyn and I exchanged a few words. The fading light had prompted Graeme Smith to give Steyn a final burst and he came charging in. At one point he joked to me that he wasn’t bowling too fast, for it was a touch above 150 kph. At this I asked him, ‘Where was your bravado when the sun was out?’ To be honest, all this banter did was strengthen my resolve. It was all in good spirit, though. I have always been opposed to ugly sledging, but a little bit of banter isn’t a bad thing on the cricket field and in fact can add something to a high-intensity contest – as long as it remains within reasonable limits, of course.

We had lost eight wickets by the end of day four and on the final day South Africa closed out the match comfortably to win by ten wickets. We went to Durban for the Boxing Day Test knowing that we had a hard task ahead of us. Yet the improved batting effort in the second innings at Centurion had given us a bit of a boost, and we felt we had at least adapted to the conditions by the time we stepped out in Durban.

The start of the Boxing Day Test match was different, to say the least. There was a light drizzle on the first morning and yet the pitch was left uncovered. Even the pitch report was done by the commentators braving the drizzle, a fact that was brought to my attention by one of my team-mates. The more the moisture, the more it was expected to favour the South African fast bowlers. I remember telling my team-mate that such things don’t matter and it all evens out in the end.

This reminded me of something that had happened in Melbourne in December 2003. On the last day of the Test match, with Australia needing 97 runs to win, there was a delay to the start of play despite conditions apparently being perfect. The reason was that the pitch had been tampered with by the groundsmen, in clear violation of the rules. At the end of day four, there was a big crack in the pitch as a result of the wear and tear, and balls landing in the crack could have done anything. To our surprise, the groundsmen had filled up the crack before the start of play on day five, incurring the umpires’ wrath. The umpires spotted it because the repaired area had not fully dried out and was a different colour from the rest of the wicket. The umpires had to instruct the groundsmen to undo the repair and restore the pitch to its original condition.

Durban was a low-scoring Test match but no less exciting for that. Zaheer came back to lead our attack and both he and Bhajji bowled brilliantly after we had made a modest 205 in our first innings. They combined well to finish South Africa off for just 131 in their first innings and were aided by some brilliant catching behind the wickets. Rahul picked up his 200th catch in this match when he caught Dale Steyn off Bhajji at slip. It was one of Rahul’s best catches and he had to dive full length to his left and pick it up almost from behind the wicketkeeper. We celebrated the dismissal in the knowledge that the match was gradually turning in our favour.

In our second innings, it was another VVS Laxman special that got us out of trouble. He showed class in his innings of 96 and gave us a lead of over 300 to defend in the final innings. Laxman batted brilliantly with the tail, which was something he was a master at in the latter stages of his career. He was always unflustered and exuded a sense of calm which rubbed off on the other batsmen.

It was now up to Zaheer, Ishant, Sreesanth and Bhajji to finish the job and level the series. They did it in some style. South Africa were never allowed to get away and our bowlers sent down some unplayable deliveries. Sreesanth’s ball to Kallis that jumped from short of a length and left him in no position to do anything was the best of the match. Zaheer had taken six wickets in the match and had again shown his importance as the leader of the attack. It was an amazing victory, one of our best away wins.

Before the final Test, I met up with Anjali and the kids and my friends Vivek and Sonia Palkar in Cape Town on 30 December and we celebrated the Durban win and the penultimate day of 2010 at a fantastic vineyard, the Constantia Uitsig. The place also had a cricket field and an excellent restaurant. It was an experience I was looking forward to, having consciously tried to learn more about red wine after visiting Australia in 1999. The celebrations continued on 31 December, when the team ushered in the New Year at a fabulous hotel in the foothills of Table Mountain.

In the third and deciding Test match at Cape Town on 2 January 2011, South Africa batted first on a pitch that offered reasonable help for the seam bowlers throughout the match. The ball was doing a lot off the pitch and in the air and batting wasn’t easy. It was apparent to us all that South African captain Graeme Smith was not at all comfortable against Zaheer’s left-arm swing. This was evident to us when he played a ball to midwicket and just jogged a single when he could easily have picked up two runs. I remember Bhajji running beside the ball and urging Smith to go for a second run. His refusal to do so suggested he had lost the mental battle to Zaheer, and we used the opportunity to give him a hard time in the middle. Kallis played brilliantly again, however, and, thanks to his 161, South Africa posted a competitive 362 in their first innings.

I went in to bat towards the end of day two and played a handful of deliveries to settle in. Then I came forward to a ball from Dale Steyn pitched on middle-and-leg and played it to midwicket for four. Everything about that shot – the swing and flow, my body position and foot movement – felt perfect and something told me I was in for a good innings.

The next day I resumed on 49, knowing the morning was going to be tough. Gautam Gambhir and I were up against two of the finest bowlers in the world in Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel – and in helpful bowling conditions. In an attempt to counter the movement, I deliberately stood outside the crease. My thinking was that if I was beaten from there, the ball would most likely go over the stumps. To get bowled I would have to miss an overpitched delivery, which was unlikely, and if the South Africans decided to dig in short I could play the upper cut over the slips.

For the entire first hour, I played Dale Steyn while Gautam negotiated Morne Morkel and we both scored a number of fours in the first ten overs. It seemed that whenever we connected, the ball raced to the boundary. The South Africans had a lot of fielders in catching positions and it meant we got full value for our shots. I went into lunch unbeaten on 94 and knew it would be one of my best hundreds if I managed to get there. The task wasn’t easy, with the second new ball just two overs old.

My tactic of batting outside the crease seemed to work. That day the only delivery for which I stood inside the crease was the fifth ball from Morne Morkel after lunch. I had a premonition that Morkel would bowl short and so moved back inside the crease, ready to play the hook shot. Sure enough, the ball turned out to be a chest-high bouncer and, though I got a top edge, the ball flew over the wicketkeeper’s head for six, taking me to the fifty-first, and last, Test hundred of my career.

I know it’s bizarre but it seemed to me that five days earlier I had seen Morne’s delivery in a dream. In the dream he had bowled a bouncer to me that I hooked to get to my hundred. I mentioned this to my batting partner Dhoni, saying ‘
Yeh ball mere life mein pehle bhi aaya hai. Mein yeh pehle dekh chuka hoon. Aaj ye dusri bar ho raha hai.
’ (This delivery has already come once before in my life. I have seen and faced this delivery before. Today I faced it for a second time.) Who knows, maybe it was the dream that prompted me to stand back inside the crease for that one ball!

When Harbhajan Singh came in, we were still more than a hundred runs behind South Africa and needed one more decent partnership to get close to their total, but Harbhajan was finding it difficult to negotiate Steyn’s fast swinging deliveries. Bhajji had scored consecutive hundreds against New Zealand in the series before and was in good batting form, but those conditions were not best suited to him.

I went up to tell him to forget about technique for the time being: ‘
Batsman ki tahra batting mat kar tu. Technique bhul ja. Agar ball tere range me dikhi tu ghuma. Ghuma tu kyun ki runs chahiye humhe. Kaise bhi ho runs chahiye
.’ (Don’t try to bat like a batsman. Forget about technique for the time being. If you see the ball in your arc just hit it. We need runs at the moment. It doesn’t matter how they come as long as they come.)

Harbhajan listened to the advice and in no time was on his way. He pulled the left-arm seamer Lonwabo Tsotsobe for six and hit Morne Morkel for a four. But his best shot was off Dale Steyn. It was a full delivery and Harbhajan just stood there and hit through the line. Bhajji has power and the shot sailed over the long-on boundary at least ten rows back for a huge six. To add insult to injury, Bhajji offered a wry smile to Steyn, who by now was furious.