Playing It My Way: My Autobiography (52 page)

I first became aware of all the fuss when I was on a family holiday in England in June 2011 before the Test series. I was asked if I had deliberately skipped the West Indies tour to ensure that the 100th hundred came at Lord’s in the first Test. I did not have a Test hundred at Lord’s (and now never will have) and this, I was informed, was my way of setting the record straight. Only, it was news to me. I would, of course, have been delighted to get the hundred at Lord’s, but hundreds simply do not happen as easily as that.

The obsession soon turned into hysteria. Every time I went in to bat, I was supposed to get to the landmark hundred. Believe me, I wanted to get it out of the way. I was spending hours at the nets and felt good about my batting, but gradually the 100th ton was starting to play on my mind.

At The Oval in the fourth and final Test, which started on 18 August, England scored 591 in their first innings, with 235 from Ian Bell and another century from Pietersen. We were bowled out for 300 in reply and asked to follow on. I was dismissed for 23 in our first innings, trying to play a sweep shot to Graeme Swann, and was extremely angry at getting out that way. My mood wasn’t helped by the fact that earlier I had been hit on my left shoulder by a ball from Stuart Broad and scans later revealed a tear.

I was keen to make amends in the second innings when I went in at the fall of our second wicket with an hour of play left on day four. There was a patch of rough created by the left-arm seamer RP Singh outside the right-hander’s off stump and while batting against Graeme Swann I decided to take an off-stump guard to negate the impact of the rough. The strategy paid off and I was able to negotiate the last hour with relative ease. Resuming on 35 the next day, I focused on the thought of returning to the dressing room after batting all day to save the match.

Amit Mishra, our leg-spin googly bowler, was batting with me and we were both conscious that the first hour on the final day was critical, with the English attack led by James Anderson bowling superbly in home conditions. Amit, the nightwatchman, was resolute in protecting his wicket and I walked up to him at the end of every over to tell him that he should bat as if it was our last wicket.

I managed to hit a few good boundaries and began to feel I was getting a grip on proceedings. We saw off Anderson and the first hour went more or less to plan. Stuart Broad and Swann took over but we continued our resistance and got to lunch without losing a wicket. We had won the session and scored 87 runs in the process. I was on 72 and Amit had played superbly for his 57.

On resumption, I kept telling Amit that he should focus on getting another 50 runs. Every run was getting us closer to the England total. I was on 91 when Amit was finally bowled by Swann for 84. We were just 29 adrift of the English total and the partnership had put on 144 for the fourth wicket. We had almost managed to play out the first hour after lunch and there was a good chance of saving the game if we batted well for three more hours. And that’s when I got out for 91. I was standing well outside my crease and the ball from Tim Bresnan came back a long way to hit my pads as I tried to play it to midwicket. While batting, you can usually sense the trajectory of the ball and there was little doubt in my mind that the drift would have taken the ball past the leg stump, so I was surprised to see umpire Rod Tucker raise his finger.

A sense of helplessness descended on me. All the good work of the morning had been undone and it was going to be difficult to save the match with so many overs left in the day. The decision, replays showed, was not the best; luck, a key ingredient in cricket, had once again deserted me. When I met umpire Tucker later in the year he jokingly suggested to me that his friends were not happy with the decision and had given him a lot of grief for it. It was good of him to come and speak to me and we both decided to forget it and move on.

The Test series was followed by a five-match one-day series and I was looking to carry forward the form I had shown at The Oval. Just then, my shoulder injury really started to bother me again. Even when I was resting during the two Twenty20 matches, it showed no signs of settling down and I was forced to have an ultrasound-guided injection in the shoulder joint. It was in Durham on the eve of the first ODI that my toe also started to play up again during training. I did everything possible to settle the pain and took a few anti-inflammatory pills at night, but they didn’t help and I woke the next morning feeling worse. I was feeling worried when we left the hotel on our way to the ground and as soon as we reached the stadium I asked Ashish Kaushik to strap my foot. The moment I stepped down from his physio table onto the hard tiles I suspected I was in trouble. When I tried getting into my spikes, I knew I couldn’t play. At the end of the second Test match I had not been able to think of missing a game. Now the pain was such that I could not think of playing a game.

We decided to go to London for a fresh set of scans. I was given two injections in the sole of my foot and I must say they were two of the most painful injections I have had in my life. The doctors then informed me that I needed to rest my foot for five to six weeks. I finally started training again on the eve of the three-Test series against the West Indies at home in November 2011.

As soon as I resumed practice, the clamour for the 100th hundred started again.

By November 2011, the pressure had really started to get to me. Every day I was getting a lot of text messages wishing me well for the century and asking me not to worry. They were sent with the best of intentions, but unfortunately they made it impossible for me not to think about the landmark all the time. Everywhere I went people were talking about it – in hotels, restaurants, planes and airport lounges. While it was touching to see the affection, at times it began to get quite unbearable. It was difficult to cope with all the words of sympathy and reassurance and the looks on people’s faces day after day.

While recuperating from the toe injury under the supervision of physio Harshada Rajadhyaksha, who has helped me for over a decade, I had started to mentally prepare myself for the visit of the West Indies. It was important for the team to put the England slump behind us, especially as we had another tough tour of Australia lined up for the end of the year. Preparation was important because the West Indies attack, with Fidel Edwards, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach and Darren Sammy, was not the easiest to face, a fact that became all too clear at Delhi in the first Test, which started on 6 November.

Contrary to the general expectation that we would roll the West Indies over, we were bowled out for 209 in our first innings at Delhi and conceded a lead of 95 to the tourists. Though our bowlers did well to bowl them out for 180 in the second innings, with Ashwin taking six wickets, we were confronted with a tricky chase of 276 to win the game. I went out to bat with our score at 95–2 and was eventually out with just 30 runs needed for victory. I had scored 76 and was delighted to have helped us take a 1–0 lead in the series.

Fans and critics, however, were not quite so pleased. As far as they were concerned, I had fallen twenty-four runs short and the headline was ‘Sachin fails again’. The hundred had turned into a fixation and people were starting to calculate my scores backwards from 100. I don’t think it had ever happened to a cricketer before and deep down it started to get to me. As the wait continued, a section of the media started making things even more difficult. They suggested that I was only playing to achieve personal milestones. It was a strange paradox. Here I was in Delhi scoring 76 and helping India to victory, yet I was criticized for playing for selfish reasons.

Three Indian batsmen made centuries in our only innings in the second Test at Eden Gardens in Kolkata starting on 14 November, but unfortunately I wasn’t one of them. Laxman was unbeaten on 176, while Rahul made 119 and Dhoni 144 in our total of 631. My contribution was only 38. Our bowlers then dismissed the West Indies twice to give us a win by an innings and 15 runs.

The final Test in Mumbai started on 22 November and the West Indies dashed our hopes of a 3–0 whitewash by posting 590 in their first innings, with Darren Bravo making 166 and their first six batsmen all making fifties. At the end of the third day I was not out on 67 in our first innings and playing well. Could I really make that elusive 100th hundred on my home ground?

On our way to the ground on the morning of the fourth day, the number of outside-broadcast vans lined up opposite the stadium was staggering and that’s when I realized this was a very different occasion from normal. Darren Sammy, the West Indies captain, took the second new ball and immediately there was some movement for both Fidel Edwards and Ravi Rampaul. I was standing outside the crease to counter the movement and told myself not to chase any balls outside off stump while the ball was swinging. I started the day well by flicking Rampaul for four in the very first over, following it up with a punch off Edwards through cover. I then produced an upper cut over slip for six against Edwards and was just seven short of the hundred.

Just then, I looked at the scoreboard and started to feel distinctly strange. My feet were heavy and it was as if I had no strength left. I had never felt as nervous in my career, not even when I had been about to make my first Test hundred in 1990. I walked away towards square leg and took a few deep breaths. I kept telling myself to concentrate hard and not lose focus. It was a sensation I had never experienced before.

My ninety-fourth run was a single to deep point. In the next over from Rampaul, I played the last three balls after Virat had taken a single off the third delivery. The fourth ball was full and I played it to cover, moving well to the pitch of the ball and negating any possible movement. The next ball bounced a little but I managed to play it down with soft hands. Rampaul was trying to get the ball to move away and I needed to be watchful. The last ball of the over came in to me quicker and bounced a little more than I anticipated and the shot travelled quickly to Sammy at second slip, who held a good catch. It all happened within a fraction of a second and only when I glanced back did I realize that I was out.

The realization was exceedingly painful. I had come within one shot of the century. But you can never take anything for granted in the game, and that’s part of its beauty. I was still dazed as I walked back to the pavilion, trying to take in the applause of a very appreciative crowd. The wait would have to continue and the pressure was bound to become even more intense in the days ahead.

After the Test series, I decided to withdraw from the one-day series. There was speculation that it was because I didn’t want to get the hundred in an ODI against the West Indies, but that had nothing to do with it. My big toe had started to trouble me again. I was finding it difficult to change direction while running and simply could not cope with the pressure of one-day cricket. I knew I needed to do something about it before the next Test series in Australia.

I left for Australia on 8 December to get acclimatized to the conditions and be fully prepared for the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. The injury hadn’t disappeared completely and I went to a podiatrist to get the toe examined again. When I tried out some new insoles, the experiment actually made things worse and I had to go back to my old ones, but that was when I came up with the idea of using corn caps. These were cut in the shape of doughnuts and filled with jelly, and were placed right underneath the toe to absorb the pressure of the spikes. They seemed to work to a certain extent. The first time we had to apply the strapping, it took about forty-five minutes, because we were still figuring out exactly how to do it so that the padding stayed in the same place throughout the day. Within a week it was taking twenty minutes and soon I was doing the strapping myself in my own room, so that I didn’t have to start every day in the physio’s room. Every night during Test matches, I would get the tape ready and cut it to the exact size. That way I got a few extra minutes in the morning and wasn’t so rushed.

In the Boxing Day Test at the MCG we started extremely well, bowling Australia out for 333 in their first innings, In our reply, I came in when the score was 97–2 and found that I was moving as well as I had done in years and I was able to play all my shots. For example, in the first over after tea I was in complete control against Peter Siddle, the leader of their attack. After hitting the first ball for six over third man, I flicked him for three runs the very next ball. In the thirty-fifth over of our innings, I hit him for two consecutive fours, the second of which was a cover drive I particularly remember. The ball was pitched slightly outside off stump and I sent it racing to the boundary.

I was playing aggressively and followed up the Siddle cover drive with another off Ben Hilfenhaus. He tried to compensate and bowled a full delivery to me in the same over and I played a straight drive past mid on for yet another four. I had reached 32 off twenty-nine balls. It was just the kind of start I wanted and it was time for consolidation. I managed to get to my fifty off just fifty-five deliveries and the momentum had swung our way.

When I look back at this innings, I have little doubt that I was batting as well as I could have done. If I had managed to survive the last over of the second day, the entire series might have been different, but I was out for 73 to a Siddle delivery that moved in late after pitching, forcing me to play away from my body. My wicket gave the Australians an opening and they did very well to capitalize on the opportunity on the third morning.

Anjali and the kids were in Melbourne at the time and it would have been fantastic to get the hundred there after batting so well. Rahul was out in the first over the next morning and Laxman and Dhoni followed soon after, handing Australia control of the match. I was so disappointed after getting out that I sought solace in food that night when I went out for dinner with Anjali, the kids and my mother-in-law. Not only did I end up eating two huge main courses in frustration but, to add to my woes, I also lost my credit card.