Playing It My Way: My Autobiography (17 page)

Match drawn

3rd Test. Nottingham. 4–9 July 1996

India 521 (
SR Tendulkar 177
, SC Ganguly 136, R Dravid 84; CC Lewis 3–89) and 211 (
SR Tendulkar 74
, SC Ganguly 48, NR Mongia 45; MA Ealham 4–21)

England 564 (MA Atherton 160, N Hussain 107, MA Ealham 51, AJ Stewart 50; SC Ganguly 3–71)

Match drawn

England won the series 1–0

Captaining India is undoubtedly a great honour, and it was a job I felt ready for at that point in my career. I had captained Mumbai and led them to victory in the Ranji Trophy in 1995–96. In all, I captained Mumbai in sixteen out of the thirty-eight Ranji Trophy matches I played in, and I continued to do well as a batsman in these games, scoring at an average of 99.53. I had also captained West Zone in the Duleep Trophy, so it wasn’t an altogether new experience. Yet captaining India is fundamentally different, with its own particular challenges.

First, there is the need to cope with the demands of the non-stop media machine. The Indian captain’s every move is headline news and it was no easy task to protect myself from the constant media glare. More important, perhaps, was learning how to deal with the selection committee and the practice of zonal representation associated with it.

In India the committee consists of five selectors, one from each zone: West, North, South, East and Central. Zonal representation sometimes resulted in selectors pushing players from their particular zone and in my first stint as captain the team undoubtedly suffered as a consequence. There were occasions when I wasn’t given the team of my choice and did not get particular players I asked for. For me, the priority was always the Indian team. For some of the selectors, however, things may have been different. I felt there were other factors dictating team selection and at times I felt disappointed after selection committee meetings.

My first match as captain was against Australia at the Kotla in New Delhi in October 1996, and we were keen to bounce back after the series defeat in England in the summer. We also needed to win the Test to keep our amazing home Test record intact. We managed to do so, with Nayan Mongia, our wicketkeeper and stand-in opener, scoring a remarkable 152. It wasn’t a bad start as skipper.

Unusually, Australia had travelled all the way to India just to play a single Test, which was intended to mark the inauguration of the Border–Gavaskar Trophy, named after two of world cricket’s greatest icons. At least there was a good reason for that one-off game; at other times it was a little difficult to understand the thinking behind some of our shorter tours. A couple of years earlier, for example, we went all the way to New Zealand for one Test match and four ODIs, with no practice games, and that was considered a tour of New Zealand! We also played our fair share of two-Test series over the years and they are not altogether satisfactory either – you blink four times and a two-Test series is over!

Next on the horizon was a home Test series against South Africa, which was preceded by another one-day tournament, the Titan Cup, involving India, Australia and South Africa. It was no small achievement to beat Australia and South Africa, two of the best teams in the world at the time, on our way to the title. In the final at the Wankhede on 6 November, I scored 67 in our modest 220, with Jadeja adding 43, and then it was all down to Anil Kumble, who took four wickets as we bowled the South Africans out for 185, winning the match by 35 runs. It was a very welcome victory after our disappointing loss to Sri Lanka in the World Cup semi-final and it was particularly satisfying for me, because I had experimented with something radically different as captain.

After Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad had bowled good first spells and Anil had picked up a couple of wickets, I had to turn to Robin Singh, our all-rounder, for the fifth bowler’s quota. Robin bowled medium pace and was extremely accurate. I decided to go with a four–five field. In an ODI, it is very unusual, with a medium-pacer operating, for there to be only four fielders on the off side and five on the on. I had no deep point and had fielders at third man, short point, cover and long off. On the on side I had fielders at fine leg, short square leg, short midwicket, deep square leg and long on. I asked Robin to bowl stump-to-stump and make sure not a single ball was pitched outside the off stump, otherwise the South Africans would pick off singles to third man. Three or four singles an over would really ease the pressure on them in a relatively low-scoring contest. I wasn’t worried about Robin bowling a leg-stump wide, just as long as he didn’t pitch the ball outside off stump. I was confident that the South Africans were not prepared for this strategy. Robin did his job well. He bowled his full quota of ten overs, giving away only 40 runs and also picking up the important wickets of Hansie Cronje and Daryll Cullinan.

The Test series that followed the Titan Cup was always going to be fiercely competitive. South Africa were one of the better teams at the time and had fast bowlers of the calibre of Allan Donald and Fanie de Villiers and batsmen of the class of Cronje, Gary Kirsten, Daryll Cullinan and Jonty Rhodes. The first match of the series at Ahmedabad started on 20 November 1996 and was a great contest, with multiple twists and turns. After we were bowled out for a modest 223 in the first innings, South Africa managed a handy 21-run lead. It was a good lead in the context of what seemed likely to be a low-scoring game and we had to bat well in the second innings to set them a reasonable target. We faltered and left South Africa needing just 170 to win in a little under two days.

The game wasn’t lost yet, however. There was a lot of wear and tear on the pitch by the end of the third day and we knew that 170 might prove tricky on that surface. We were playing two leg-spinners in Anil Kumble and Narendra Hirwani and a left-arm spinner in Sunil Joshi. The South Africans would undoubtedly expect me to attack them with spinners on a crumbling pitch. Instead, I decided to use Javagal Srinath, because Sri, with his extra pace, could also get the ball to reverse-swing. Swing at a good pace is very difficult to deal with and in no time Srinath had given us a dream start, reducing the South Africans to 0–2.

After his successful short opening burst, I rested Srinath for a while before bringing him back for another long spell. I kept talking to him to check if he was feeling tired. He was bowling beautifully and had the batsmen in all sorts of trouble. I put Sunil Joshi on at the other end to keep the batsmen in check and not concede too many runs. I asked Sunil to pitch the ball in the rough outside the left-handers’ off stump and keep them tied down to one end. This was to allow Srinath to bowl to the right-handers, as reverse swing was more effective against right-handed batsmen. This move paid real dividends. Sunil managed to stem the run flow while from the other end Srinath picked up wickets at regular intervals.

At no time during the chase were South Africa in with a chance. We kept up the pressure and managed to bowl them out for 105 in just thirty-nine overs, recording a famous victory. It was the high point of my captaincy; the plan to use Srinath from one end had worked really well. Hansie Cronje walked up to me after the game and confessed that he had been caught off-guard. He had expected me to employ spinners and had a strategy in place to negotiate the turning ball on a wearing pitch. He did not have a plan for Srinath, and by the time he had come to terms with our tactics the match was over.

The other thing I tried out in that Test match for the first time, something that served India well for a decade and a half, was to get Rahul Dravid to bat at number three and Sourav Ganguly at five, which was not an obvious decision at the time. Both had had great starts to their careers in England batting in other positions. Sourav had scored two consecutive hundreds batting at number three. In his third Test against Australia, which was the first of my captaincy, he once again batted in that position and scored 66 in the first innings and was unbeaten on 21 in the second. He was full of confidence and was keen to continue batting at three. Rahul too had scored consecutive fifties in England in his first two Tests and was looking good at number five. However, I felt that by changing the batting order I could get the best out of each of them in the long run.

Sourav was a boundary-hitter and liked playing his shots from the start of his innings. He was flamboyant and more attacking and I felt his style was more suited to number five. Rahul on the other hand played within himself at the start of his innings and was comfortable leaving a lot of deliveries outside the off stump. That’s an important ability for a number-three batsman. The two had very different strengths and I knew that both were terrific players and had the talent to serve India for many years. With Rahul at three and Sourav at five, I felt the team would have a better balance, especially in overseas conditions. Though we reverted to Sourav at three and Rahul at five for the deciding third Test of this series and the first two Tests in South Africa shortly afterwards, we repeated the experiment in the third and final Test of that series at Johannesburg in January 1997. It worked very well and became a permanent fixture of India’s batting for over a decade.

In the second Test of the home series at Eden Gardens at the end of November 1996, South Africa beat us comfortably, with Lance Klusener and Gary Kirsten playing well for the visitors. Klusener took eight wickets on debut and Gary scored hundreds in both innings. One of South Africa’s most prolific opening batsmen, Gary had the remarkable ability to pick up singles at will with a nudge into the gap between midwicket and square leg. This made him an extremely difficult batsman to bowl to. A fierce competitor, he is someone I had the highest respect for as an opponent.

We went to Kanpur for the third Test with the series level. Azhar was in commanding form in the second innings, remaining undefeated on 163, and once we had managed to set South Africa a target of over 450 we knew we were in control. We bowled South Africa out for 180, winning the Test by 280 runs and the series 2–1. To beat Australia and South Africa in my first two series as captain was the best start I could have hoped for, and when we left for South Africa in December 1996 we were a team brimming with confidence.

The planning for the return series was not the best. We landed in South Africa on 19 December and played just one practice game before the first Test match in Durban on Boxing Day. On a tour like that you really need at least two or three practice games and close to two weeks of acclimatization to be competitive. The conditions are so different from those in India that players have to have that time to get used to the seam movement and the bounce. Balls that hit the bottom half of the bat in India come at heights close to the bat handle in South Africa.

We lost the Durban Test miserably, bowled out by the South African fast bowlers for 66 in the second innings in just thirty-four overs. It was a demoralizing loss and I had never experienced anything like it before. South Africa proved superior to us in all aspects of the game and we were left with a huge amount of work to do ahead of the second Test at Cape Town.

To add to my problems, I had injured myself in Durban while bowling and the injury was taking a few days to heal. It happened when I decided to bowl to Andrew Hudson just before lunch on the first day. I thought I would run in slowly and bowl him an unexpected bouncer, hoping to induce a top edge. In doing so, I pulled a muscle in my side. The pain was surprisingly acute and I had to go to the hospital during the lunch break to have three cortisone injections. Even when I rejoined the team at the ground I was still extremely sore and found it difficult to run or bend.

The second Test started on 2 January 1997, so there were only a few days for the team to recover and regroup. It was never going to be enough to cope with a really good South African side. In Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock, the South Africans had two of the best fast bowlers in the world, and they complemented each other beautifully in home conditions. While Donald was fast, Pollock could swing the ball both ways and was a master of his craft. Nevertheless, we did manage to show some signs of competitiveness in Cape Town and both Azhar and I got hundreds in the first innings.

I went in to bat towards the end of the second day and was unbeaten on one at the end of play, with the team score on 29–3. The following morning I was practising against throw-downs ahead of the game and tried shuffling back and across to a few of the balls. It felt really good and I even timed the balls well. Something in me said that I should employ the back-and-across movement that day. I did so and found that, even when the bowlers were bowling at close to 150 kph, I still had plenty of time. Normally I would stand just outside my leg stump while taking guard, but at Cape Town I was standing a good few inches outside to accommodate the shuffle. I ended up making 169. I always felt that I needed to be comfortable in my head before I focused on technique. If I wasn’t comfortable to start with, fretting about technique would not do much for my batting.

The other incident I remember from the Cape Town Test and which I thoroughly enjoyed involved Allan Donald and the Indian medium-fast bowler Dodda Ganesh. Donald, who was in top form in that series, had no patience with lower-order batsmen and was frustrated to see Ganesh hanging around. As Dodda faced his onslaught fearlessly, Allan started mouthing words at him. For three consecutive deliveries Dodda was all over the place but luckily for him did not lose his wicket. At the end of the over Allan went up to Dodda and told him what he thought of him in no uncertain terms. Dodda’s face remained impassive.

I witnessed all this from the non-striker’s end. When Allan came to fetch his cap from the umpire, I told him, ‘Allan, Dodda only knows a local Indian language called Kannada. I find it difficult enough to communicate with him myself, so how can he understand your abuse in English? If you want to get to him, speak to him in Kannada.’ This made Allan even more irritated. He almost snatched his cap from the umpire and, making wild gestures with his hands, stomped off to his fielding position.