How Sachin Destroyed My Life: but gave me an All Access Pass to the world of Cricket

by Vikram Sathaye

  A delayed decision is a lost opportunity. Even if it’s a bad decision it’s better to take it, rather than allow someone else to take it. — Ravi Ashwin

  “The only option for a spinner is to adapt and be brave enough to even get beaten up once in a while. Don’t be defensive even if things go wrong. Take fast calls and remember that a delayed decision is a lost opportunity. Even if it’s a bad decision it’s better to take it rather than allow someone else to take it.”

  I remember my elders telling me that the best way to understand any concept was by trying to explain it to someone else. Ashwin said this worked beautifully for him as he had started coaching tennis ball cricket players at the age of 20 and learnt a hell of a lot from it. He mentions that being a coach made him realise that there were a lot of basic things even at the international level he was forgetting to implement. It was through these coaching sessions with the players that he found out through experimentation and observation the correlation between pressure and performance.

  He says, “A spinner bowls well when there is no batsman. Then when you keep an ordinary batsman, he bowls two bad balls in an over and when there is a good batsman he automatically bowls 4 bad balls including 2 full tosses. This is how the mind of a bowler works, so it’s important in a way that one should focus on the process.” Very similar to what great batsmen say, “Don’t play the bowler, play the ball.”

  Spinners these days are everywhere and are having a whale of a time making their own style statements. England had Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar. Monty kind of represents the old-school spinner like me who has somehow managed to hold fort by increasing the quality of his bowling. He is one of the most uncoordinated human beings on the planet. Inspite of having the longest fingers in the business he misses high fives by a foot.

  I recently read Monty’s autobiography, yes he has already written one and I can understand where he is coming from. He’s probably thinking, “I don’t know much about my future, let me get the book out of my bucket list or years later I may not even get that deal.” The one thing I was really proud of Monty was that while his teammates peed on the pitch, he peed on a bouncer in a night club. This is such fast bowlerish behaviour. This is the attitude I like, for he just might be the first and last person of Indian origin to take on a bouncer.

  7

  A Nation Of Speed Breakers

  “When will India produce another Kapil Dev?”

  “My mother 65, father no more…not possible.”

  Kapil Dev, responding to a journalist.

  I’m sure he’s answered this question in his baritone Haryanvi accent at a zillion press conferences.

  In a nation of batsmen and spinners, Kapil Dev was truly the first and last athletic fast bowler we’ve had and I doubt this phenomenon will ever happen again.

  If you grew up as a boy in the 80s, the chances of you having a Kapil Dev poster in your bedroom and a Samantha Fox poster in your bathroom were pretty high. Of course if it was the other way round, there would have been an aberration in the family. Between them, they summed up the passion quotient of young Indian boys in those post Emergency years.

  I remember meeting Kapil Dev as an impressionable 6-year-old and was completely mesmerised by his personality. Even in those days it was difficult to understand his Haryanvi-English accent, but unlike an older me, I wasn’t judgmental back then. His charisma was far more overpowering than his accent. I have come to believe that Kapil Dev’s English and Srikanth’s Hindi have destroyed the educational fabric of this country.

  Over the years I have had the pleasure of being part of a number of events with Kapil paaji and every one of these interactions has been a source of new material for me. He takes great pride in narrating stories about his and the Indian team’s troubles with the English language during their early years. He is one of the few people who has that rare ability to laugh at himself more than any film star could possibly dream of. Today nine out of ten conversations one has with him are about golf or some business deal. He is one of the only ex-cricketers I have seen who has mastered another sport post retirement and through that platform managed to befriend CEOs and is believed to be associated with diverse businesses from coal, oil and power to name a few. Fund managers have a lot to learn from Kapil paaji’s truly diversified portfolio.

  Growing up in the 80s, it was a treat to watch Kapil Dev twitch his shoulder blades while walking towards his bowling mark. He said this was a habit that he developed in the hot English summers where it would get very sweaty. His delivery stride was beautiful with his head turning sideways while delivering that lovely out-swinger.

  I have always believed that fast bowling was never taken seriously and given the importance it deserved in our country. This is something that can be blamed on our feudal history and the caste system. As a kid, every boy who played cricket wanted to bat. Unfortunately, cricket equipment was relatively expensive and invariably owned by some unsporting spoilt rich kid who thought it was his birth right to bat and when he got out he would take the bat, ball and stumps along with him and go home. Bowling was always regarded as a menial and laborious task delegated to the weakest and most ignored kids and by chance if any of these kids got a wicket, the rich ones would dub it a trial ball. So invariably, most fast bowlers came from weaker sections of society and were always exploited. A typical case of the means of production belonging to the rich, leading to exploitation. Inspite of this, Kapil Dev’s domination makes him a folk hero. If this was the state of fast bowling, do we even need to discuss fielding? I am personally guilty of having exploited this loophole and still regret having made my sister field for hours whenever we played cricket with the promise that I’d let her bat. Like most politicians of the 80s who promised roti, kapda aur makaan, my promise too never came true.

  This attitude towards fast bowling was the reason that India produced reluctant fast bowlers. One need not look beyond Munaf Patel to understand why. If you thought Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s face showed a sense of tranquility, then multiply that by 100 and that’s the level of calmness you see on Munaf Patel’s face while he walks to his bowling mark! Irrespective of what’s happening on the pitch, there is a constant smile on his face and he doesn’t seem to get affected by stupid things like being hit for a 4 or a 6. Even when he walks to his bowling mark you get a sense that he’s walking in the woods or trying to achieve nirvana. At one point of time, he was one of India’s fastest and most feared bowlers but he lowered his speed because he didn’t want to hurt the batsman.

  If you thought Munaf was bad, we also had a struggling fast bowler by the name of Ashish Nehra. I refer to him as struggling because with him, you got the impression that someone was holding him from the back and he had to struggle to reach the bowling mark. Nehra was a good bowler but he always seemed to have had great difficulty running. Even when he’d run after the ball while fielding, one would feel like requesting the ball to slow down because it was too much agony to watch him do so. I don’t blame Nehra for this. It’s just that Indian bodies are not designed to do this kind of hard work, though I’ve always wondered why we’ve never had a steady stream of aggressive, hot tempered strappy fast bowlers from Punjab. I guess they saw more merit in singing bhangra and being the next Yo Yo Honey Singh. Less effort, more rewards.

  Or maybe BCCI purposely didn’t want them to bowl fast because they wanted Anil Kumble to retire as India’s fastest bowler. Somehow I feel that fast bowlers like Munaf, Ashish and the others could have done a lot better if they had been managed well. I thought Ishant was far luckier than the rest, though I believe his long hair and prominent Adam’s apple sometimes cause imbalance in his bowling.

  Cricket has been a batsman’s game. We all remember the hundreds scored by the great batsmen but would never remember a crucial match winning 3-wicket haul by someone like Chetan Sharma. The reason I mention Chetan Sharma is because I believe that the BCCI should compensate him for the mental trauma he suffered after that one bad delivery in Sharj
ah. For some reason he was blamed for all of India’s ills during that period ranging from our diplomatic failures with Pakistan to the high oil prices during the Gulf War. I feel for Chetan Sharma for what he went through during that phase in his life for that one full-toss. I wonder if any batsman has ever had to go through that kind of agony for getting bowled on a full toss. Probably never!

  It didn’t end with Chetan Sharma. Can you even imagine what would have happened to his wife or son? Imagine being at a kitty party and being introduced as “Pata hein yeh kaun hein, woh last ball six, jinhone match harvaya tha, unki Mrs.” No team would have ever given Chetan Sharma’s son the option to bowl the last over, even in galli cricket. If I were his son, I would have taken special permission from the Ministry of External Affairs to go to Pakistan and slap Javed Miandad for what he had done to my father.

  Jokes apart, when one actually talks to seasoned fast bowlers like Kapil Dev and Wasim Akram, one realises that there is a lot of method to the art of fast bowling. Zaheer Khan was someone whose evolution as a wily fast bowler I had very closely observed. He never spoke much, but when he did you could see that he had really thought through his bowling. He says, “Bowling is like meditation and for a bowler, that walk back to the bowling mark is the most crucial part of his routine because that’s what defines what will follow. Typically the thought pattern during this walk will also reflect what state of mind he is in at that point of time. Sometimes it is negative and sometimes it is positive, if it is positive it means you are in the best state of mind and that reflects on your form too. Most good bowlers constantly talk to themselves during the walk up to the bowling mark because that helps deconstruct the situation and gain clarity on the next ball. The key for a bowler is to slow things down and that comes with experience.”

  One of the key exercises that Zaheer Khan did was to reinforce his mind with positive thoughts. When Glen McGrath would go through a rough time, he would take time off to watch his past wickets. Fortunately for him, he had over 500 of them to choose from. This would immediately make him feel positive. Similarly Zak as we fondly call him keeps video clips of his best balls bowled on his iPad and watches them regularly. Apart from that, he value adds by watching batsmen’s bad balls which give him a fair sense of the weakness of the key opposition batsmen and helps him set them up.

  The great Richard Hadlee said that a bowler has to be like a quizmaster who constantly needs to be asking questions to the batsmen. He meant that figuratively and not literally, else Derek O’Brien would have been India’s greatest fast bowler. One of the things Zak said is that most batsmen take change of pace to mean the slower one but for him the most effective ball is the one that he bowls faster. That is the more effective change of pace. When one says that the batsmen is set it essentially means that he’s gotten used to the pace and bounce and that is what one has to disturb and the faster ball does that beautifully.

  As a senior bowler, you also do the thinking for the junior bowlers and guide them. An inexperienced bowler is usually nervous and unable to clearly analyse the situation. Therefore it becomes important for the senior bowler to point out the deficiencies and help the junior bowler focus on the basics.

  Self-Analysis

  As a bowler, you discover your bowling abilities and chinks during match situations. Therefore it is imperative that bowling in matches remains the focus supplemented by the gym and strengthening of core muscles. In 2006 Zak realised that when bowling over-the-wicket, the ball swung way too much and would go out of control. That’s when he first decided to try coming around the wicket. With a slight change in his wrist position, he discovered the now successful round-the-wicket strategy which he uses so effectively.

  I watch video clips of my best balls bowled on my iPad regularly. I also watch opposition batsmen’s bad balls which help me understand their weakness. — Zaheer Khan

  Zak realised his run-up was too long and by the time he reached the bowling mark he was falling apart. A shortened run-up also helped him get the incoming delivery going. He says that if you can’t bowl consistently at 145 kmph then at some point in your life, you’ve got to decide your optimal speed and focus on the skills instead. When you are young, you should bowl as fast as possible and over a period of time, add different deliveries to your armoury. Build your house with a strong foundation and you can always modify and add your showpieces later.

  According to Zak, even using your armoury is a skill. A chance discussion with a few leading batsmen in the midst of a rough patch provided him with one of the most shocking insights that he had become predictable as a bowler. After his first two deliveries, batsmen were able to predict his bowling pattern. The fight between the batsman and the bowler is not only a physical duel, but also a mental one in which the aim is to get into the other’s head and outsmart each other.

  Sometimes this happens off the field too. Zak recalls an incident when he had got Mathew Hayden out three times in a row during the India tour and he wanted to make sure that he played that into Hayden’s mind because he knew Hayden would be thinking of getting aggressive soon and batting him out of the attack. So at a function one evening, Zak walked up to him and said, “Mate I’ll get you out once again.” The following day Hayden refused to score a single run off Zak for nearly six overs and that put tremendous pressure on the Aussies, needless to say, Zak had done his job.

  Minimising injuries and maintaining peak physical fitness is essential for every fast bowler. So how does one do that? He says it’s like a buffet and you choose the dishes you want based on your appetite and your body requirements. Some would go for salads, just starters or a full course meal. Likewise, when formulating a work out, one would mix and match from a buffet of pilates, circuit training, weights, aerobics and more depending on your fitness objectives.

  Gary Kirsten played a key role in Zak’s recovery from his shoulder injury. Gary took him to the Cricket Club of India and made him bowl for over an hour. Besides giving him inputs, he made him realise the positive aspects of his bowling. That’s what a good coach should be doing. Observing what’s going on in a player’s mind and then taking corrective action.

  One of the other notable Indian fast bowlers who never got his due was Ajit Agarkar. He once explained to me that swing is all about how one maintains the ball which the Pakistani bowlers had mastered. Apart from the designated players who do that the person who also helps maintain the ball is the spinner. The spinner holds the ball closer to the palm, so if his hands get moist then it adds moisture to the rougher surface reducing the swing. Therefore a spinner who holds the ball on the rougher side to get a better grip, has to sometimes sacrifice this and hold the shinier surface in order to maintain the ball’s balance. No wonder they say that bowlers hunt in pairs.

  One of the toughest balls to bowl is the ball which is bowled straight because if you can land the ball on the seam, then it does what it has to but rarely does anyone get that delivery right.

  Measuring one’s run-up is the start of the bowling process. Ajit always believed that marking the run-up a little longer was always fun because a batsman felt a little intimidated by the length of the bowler’s run-up and only realised the futility of this after the ball was bowled. Ajit used to measure his run-up by the standard procedure of counting his steps. During a match against the Aussies Jason Gillespie noticed that the run-up length marked on the two sides of the pitch differed by almost a foot. When he checked with Srinath, he was told it was Ajit’s marking. Ajit till then had no idea that he had different lengths on either side. From then on, he ensured that his bowling run-up was measured by a tape and not by his steps. One would have never guessed that such things mattered.

  Steve Waugh used to constantly mess with Ajit’s head. One day when he came into bat he went up to Ajit and said, “You talk better than you bat.” Ajit gave it back to Steve Waugh by nearly destroying his elbow during his farewell series.

  Ajit played for Middlesex where he had the opportunity to train and
bowl with Glen McGrath. He recalls one of the incidents when McGrath turned in about 5 hours late for a match. It so happened that his car broke down. Everyone knew the reason except Ajit, so he asked McGrath when he finally appeared, “Why are you so late?” Pat came the answer, “Mate that’s what happens when you put petrol in a diesel car.” It’s good to know that unlike on the field, McGrath made a few mistakes off it.

  But his clincher was when Ricky Ponting got in his way and tried to taunt him. Ajit shut him up in a way that can make the best stand-up proud. He walked up to Ponting and just said, “Mate do you have a century at Lord’s?” For those who don’t know, Ajit has the enviable accomplishment of scoring a century at Lord’s.

  8

  The Commentator Species

  Dermot Reeve was asked what was his most memorable moment of the 2011 World Cup and his immediate response was, “Sidhu allowing me to speak one line during the tournament.”

  Navjot Singh Sidhu is one man who has single handedly destroyed the life of his co-commentators.

  Nowadays, most commentators working with Sidhu say that in case he doesn’t allow them to speak for an entire over, they declare it a maiden.

  My experiences with Sidhu during live gigs were always fun because he was very clear about what he was going to say and you had to adjust your act accordingly. I remember him once telling me, “Ask me why I’m a true leader?” I told him that the question did not fit in the scheme of things for which his reply was that he had a great one-liner for this question and therefore it was imperative that I asked him that question. Needless to say, I had no choice. When Sidhu decides to step out, you don’t bowl lolly pops to him was a lesson I had learnt a long time back while watching him thump those hapless spinners out of the park. One thing is for sure, Sidhu has been a mascot for all the literary greats whose wisdom was forgotten and Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde must be thanking Sidhu for reviving their one-liners from wherever they are now.