Back in the dressing room there was no holding back. We really needed that win after the disappointment in South Africa and it felt particularly great to see the spinners come into play in conditions that suited their art. The English batsmen I had seen hitting through the line in England in 1990 were now struggling against the turning ball. The boot was on the other foot and we were enjoying every moment of it. Playing spin in the subcontinent is quite a challenge and England were finding it very difficult. We had a three-pronged spin attack in Anil Kumble, Rajesh Chauhan and Venkatapathy Raju – a lethal threesome. With the fast bowlers Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar both very able with the bat, we had the flexibility to go in with five bowlers, making our attack look that much more potent.
The second match of the series started in Chennai on 11 February and it was in this match that I got my first home Test hundred. The surface, a very good track to bat on, was hard with a little bit of bounce. I scored 165 and could easily have gone on to score a double ton if I hadn’t played a disappointingly loose shot to Ian Salisbury, the leg-spinner. I had set out to hit the ball over midwicket and ended up top-edging it back to the bowler.
Navjot Sidhu also made a century and we posted a sizable total of 560. Despite some resistance from Neil Fairbrother in their first innings, England were forced to follow on. Chris Lewis put up a good fight in the second innings, making his maiden century, but Kumble took six wickets and we ended up winning the match comfortably. We headed to Mumbai for the third Test four days later, having already taken an unassailable 2–0 lead in the series.
This was to be my first Test match at the Wankhede Stadium, where I had grown up playing a lot of my cricket, and hence it was a homecoming of sorts. It was the same for Vinod Kambli, who got a spectacular double hundred in this match. England must have been reasonably pleased to post their biggest total of the series in their first innings, 347, with Graeme Hick making his highest Test score of 178. Yet we posted an impressive 591 in reply, of which I contributed 78, and then Manoj Prabhakar took three quick wickets and the spinners did the rest, handing the English another innings defeat. It’s fair to say that we had successfully put the disappointment of South Africa behind us.
Anil Kumble, who had bowled beautifully in all three Test matches, was declared Player of the Series. Anil was becoming the match-winner we had been looking for and discipline and rigour were the hallmarks of his craft. He did not turn the ball much but made up for it with great accuracy and tenacity. I never saw Anil let up in intensity and have nothing but the highest regard for him, one of the greatest players to have represented India.
The ODI series was more closely contested and we went into the last match at Gwalior on 5 March 1993 needing to win to level the series. Up till then, I had had a mediocre run batting at number five or six. However, at Gwalior I managed to score a quick 34 off thirty balls at a crucial time in the game and was involved in a key partnership with Azhar, who scored a brilliant 95 not out as he took us to victory.
The England series marked the beginning of a very successful phase in Indian cricket. We followed up by beating Zimbabwe in a one-off Test at home and were gradually getting into a healthy winning habit in home conditions. In ODIs we had started winning close contests and we went into the next major one-day tournament – the Hero Cup, also featuring South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies and Zimbabwe – as one of the favourites.
Turning my arm over
Not long before the Hero Cup I played a festival match in Bangalore. When Kiran More, normally a wicketkeeper, bowled me a juicy full toss I tried to hit it for six but ended up twisting my wrist. It was a freakish injury and while I was able to continue batting, I was in serious pain. After a few days the injury had still not eased and it was decided that I needed to have an injection. This was my first cortisone injection and Dr Anant Joshi flew in from Mumbai to Delhi to administer the shot. I was to be injected on my wrist very close to the palm, and with the Hero Cup just days away, I was apprehensive about the recovery. The injection, which was pretty painful, was the first of a hundred or more cortisone injections over the course of my career.
The one match of the Hero Cup I will never forget is the semi-final against South Africa on 24 November 1993. We batted first, scoring a very modest 195 in our fifty overs. We knew we needed to bowl and field exceedingly well if we were to stop South Africa from making the final. Our bowlers, led by Anil, did a very good job and at the end of the forty-ninth over South Africa needed six runs to win. Having made a match of it despite scoring too few runs, we now had to decide who should be entrusted with the task of bowling the all-important final over.
I volunteered to take the responsibility. I had not bowled on the day and so I thought my bowling would have a surprise element to it. Also, the track had assisted the slower bowlers and Kapil’s pace might have been easier for the South African batsmen to deal with. Then I realized that after fielding for forty-nine overs and in the slightly nippy evening, my body was stiff and my hands were frozen. I knew I had to warm up again quickly because there was no second chance. One wide could mean the match was over.
The first ball was a good-length delivery to Brian McMillan, one of the best all-rounders in the world at the time, who managed a single. But in the process South Africa lost Fanie de Villiers, who, in trying to get McMillan back on strike, was run out by a throw from Salil Ankola. Importantly, it meant that McMillan was at the non-striker’s end and the new man was facing me. This was my opportunity. Allan Donald, the new batsman, wasn’t great with the bat and if I managed to pin him down we definitely had a chance of winning the contest. The key was to keep the big-hitting Brian McMillan away from the strike.
As Donald walked to the wicket, I knew he was feeling the tension. I just had to hold my nerve and not try anything fancy. I deliberately bowled slower to him and even tossed one up, giving it a bit of spin. Donald was unable to cope with the lack of pace and ended up putting himself and his team under pressure by playing out three dot-balls. He didn’t manage a single till the fifth ball of the over. South Africa now needed a boundary off the last ball to win. For our part, we just needed to stop the boundary and we were in the final.
The key to handling pressure situations like these is to keep yourself steady, follow your instincts and think clearly. I was aware that there had been occasions in the past when a batsman had got an inside edge attempting a huge heave and the ball had beaten the keeper standing up and sped to the boundary. In such circumstances there’s little the bowling team can do. Remembering this, I asked Vijay Yadav, our keeper, to stand back, as if to a fast bowler.
It’s difficult to believe, looking back, but McMillan did try a slog and he did get an inside edge. Yadav easily picked up the ball twenty yards back and South Africa could only sneak a single. In the most dramatic of finishes we had managed to win and were in the final. I had conceded only three runs in the over and we had won by two runs. The packed Eden Gardens crowd, which numbered close to 100,000, turned hysterical. Paper torches were lit all round the stands, creating an unbelievable atmosphere. I felt a sense of exhilaration and was soon engulfed by my team-mates. It was one of the best one-day internationals I had played in.
The other, rather unexpected, contributor to the Indian victory was a mongoose, which kept coming onto the ground during the second half of this day-night encounter at the Eden Gardens. It seemed that every time the mongoose came on the field the momentum shifted and the South Africans lost a wicket. While it was just a coincidence, of course, it turned out to be a lucky coincidence for India!
After such a nerve-racking semi-final, the final was a relatively easy affair, with Anil running through the West Indies line-up to give us the title. He bowled brilliantly and finished off with career-best figures of 6–12 as we won the Hero Cup in front of a packed Eden Gardens. To make the victory even sweeter, I managed to get the wicket of Brian Lara. Getting Brian Lara out was interesting because
Ajit, who had travelled to Kolkata with me to watch the semi-final and the final, had mentioned to me in the hotel that I should look to get Brian Lara out if I got a chance to bowl to him, and also suggested that I should bowl stump to stump to him. As it happened, I did get a chance to bowl to Brian, who had opened the batting for the West Indies. After he had hit me for a few runs, I bowled him a delivery slightly outside the off stump, which nipped back in a shade and bowled him. Delighted with the wicket, I immediately thought of the discussion I had had with Ajit.
My first year of cricket on home soil had gone really well. However, there were still things I desperately wanted to do. One was getting my first ODI hundred and another was opening the batting for India in one-dayers.
India in New Zealand, March–April 1994
It was the morning of 27 March 1994 and later that day we were playing New Zealand in the second game of a four-match ODI series in Auckland. Navjot Sidhu, our first-choice opener, woke up with a stiff neck and was in no position to play. That’s when I went up to Azhar and our manager Ajit Wadekar, a former Indian captain and a leading batsman of his time, and pleaded with them to give me an opportunity at the top of the order. Why did I think I should open? Well, I had the ability to attack bowlers and play shots from the word go, and in the one-day game, the key was to take advantage of the field restrictions in the first fifteen overs. I was sure that I just needed a chance to prove myself. I told Wadekar Sir that if I failed I’d never ask him again. In any case, there was no reserve opener in the team and they had no choice but to experiment with an irregular opener in place of Sidhu. If they put me at the top, they could still get a middle-order batsman to fill in for me at number four or five. After a lot of pleading, they finally agreed.
New Zealand scored just 142 batting first, but we still needed to make a good start. As I walked out to bat, I felt different in some way. I told myself that this was my big chance to open the batting for India. I did not want to let down the captain and the coach. Once I was at the wicket I cleared my mind and was just intent on hitting the ball hard, come what may. It was one of those days when everything fell into place and soon I couldn’t wait for the next delivery. The quicker the better, as far as I was concerned. I managed to score 82 off forty-eight balls, finally holing out to the left-arm spinner Matthew Hart off a leading edge. I had hit fifteen fours and two sixes.
After that I no longer had to plead with Wadekar Sir to allow me to open and I continued to score runs in that position for the rest of the series, which ended up being tied 2–2. It was no surprise because New Zealand at home were always formidable opponents. In this series, I was able to dictate terms to the bowlers and all my plans were working out well. For example, against Gavin Larsen, known to be a bowler who bowled a stump-to-stump line, I came down the wicket a couple of times, forcing him to adjust his length. When he bowled short I was waiting for it and promptly dispatched the ball to the stands.
With one aim achieved, I was determined to accomplish the second as soon as possible. I had started to feel frustrated and a little embarrassed at not having scored a hundred in ODI cricket. Having already played seventy-odd games, it was about time. The moment finally came against Australia in Sri Lanka in the Singer World Series in September 1994 and it was more of a relief than anything else. So much of getting to a century is in the mind. Once you score one, you know you can score another and the doubts aren’t there any more – getting the first one is the tricky bit. My first ODI hundred certainly soothed the nerves and it was an important milestone in my career.
Playing against Brian Lara
With five years of experience, I was now firmly established in the Indian team and people had started comparing me with other players on the international scene at the time. The press love to set up rivalries and with a home series against the West Indies coming up at the end of 1994, it was inevitable that the fans and the media would pit me against Brian Lara.
Without doubt Brian Lara is one of the best players to have played this sport. I first met Brian in November 1990 during a festival match in Toronto between the West Indies and a World XI, which was played at the SkyDome, a stadium designed for Major League Baseball. We got along straight away and I enjoyed talking to him and listening to his insights. He was a clear thinker and had an excellent grasp of the nuances of the game. To add to his unrivalled flamboyance, he also had great hands and footwork, making him a champion batsman of our time. Brian was capable of playing a number of shots to the same delivery and his ability to adjust at the last moment set him apart. His technique wasn’t orthodox but that had never mattered to him. He more than made up for it with skill and footwork.
By the time the West Indies came to India in November–December 1994, Brian was already the premier batsman of his team. We knew we had to stop Brian from scoring to have a chance in the Test series, but it was easier said than done, and Brian played a very important role for the West Indies in the third and final Test at Mohali. It was his innings of 91 that set the platform for a series-levelling West Indies win. For the visitors, Jimmy Adams too played a crucial part, with 252 runs in the match.
I had a pretty good series and in the first match at Mumbai I was pleased with my performance in the second innings, scoring 85 after coming in to bat at a precarious 11–3. We won the match by 96 runs, having managed to get Brian out early in both innings. In the second Test at the VCA stadium in Nagpur, I scored 179 in our first innings. I remember this innings for my wild celebrations after scoring the century, something I hardly ever did in my career. In fact, it was an aberration, caused by a combination of factors. I was not out on 81 overnight and started the second day against the second new ball. I hit Kenneth Benjamin for four fours in the first few overs and raced to 97 in no time. Courtney Walsh was bowling from the other end and I was trying to get into his mind, to understand what he was likely to do. I had a feeling he would bowl outside off stump or full if he wanted to get me out. On the other hand, he would probably bowl bouncers if he just wanted to keep me quiet. He bowled a short ball and that’s when I realized that another one might be coming my way the very next delivery. I was ready. I played the hook to perfection and the ball sailed into the stands. It was an exhilarating way to get to a century and I just couldn’t control my emotions. I pumped my fists and screamed in joy, though none of it was meant for Walsh. It was simply because my plan had come off.
Facing criticism
The story of this series against the West Indies remains incomplete if I don’t talk about the five-match ODI series that preceded the Tests in October and November 1994. It was played in two parts. The first two ODIs were followed by a tri-series, with New Zealand joining India and the West Indies as the third team, before we went back to playing the last three games of the bilateral series.
In both of the first two ODIs against the West Indies, on 17 and 20 October, I was out without scoring. I didn’t do much better in the first match of the tri-series, on 23 October, making only eight. After just three failures, a surprising number of people started to find flaws with my game. While they might have been well-intentioned, it seemed that every ex-cricketer I met during the tri-series had some advice for me. Everyone was trying to tell me what was wrong with my game, which I found a little strange.
Yes, I had scored two consecutive ducks, but this reaction was extraordinary. Every performer goes through lean patches. I was still at ease with myself and knew that with one good score, things would fall back into place. That’s exactly what happened in the final of the tri-series, when I scored 66 at Eden Gardens. That was followed by three consecutive half-centuries in the bilateral series, culminating in a hundred in the final game at Jaipur on 11 November. I ended up as Player of the Series.
Having won the tri-series and also the five-match ODI series, we had given our fans a lot to cheer about. Coming on top of the Hero Cup win a year earlier, all these victories helped boost the popularity of ODI cricket in India
ahead of the World Cup, which was being co-hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 1996. It was set to be a massive event.
* * *
India in South Africa 1992–93
1st Test. Durban. 13–17 November 1992
South Africa 254 (KC Wessels 118, JN Rhodes 41; Kapil Dev 3–43) and 176–3 (AC Hudson 55)
India 277 (PK Amre 103, KS More 55, SR Tendulkar 11; BM McMillan 3–52)
Match drawn
2nd Test. Johannesburg. 26–30 November 1992
South Africa 292 (BM McMillan 98, JN Rhodes 91; M Prabhakar 4–90) and 252 (AC Hudson 53, DJ Richardson 50; A Kumble 6–53)
India 227 (SR Tendulkar 111; BM McMillan 4–74) and 141–4 (A Jadeja 43, SR Tendulkar 1; CR Matthews 2–23, AA Donald 2–43)
Match drawn
3rd Test. Port Elizabeth. 26–29 December 1992
India 212 (M Azharuddin 60, SR Tendulkar 6; AA Donald 5–55) and 215 (Kapil Dev 129, SR Tendulkar 0; AA Donald 7–84, BN Schultz 2–37)
South Africa 275 (WJ Cronje 135, AC Hudson 52) and 155–1 (KC Wessels 95*; SR Tendulkar 1–9)
South Africa won by 9 wickets
4th Test. Cape Town. 2–6 January 1993
South Africa 360–9 dec (JN Rhodes 86, BM McMillan 52; A Kumble 3–101) and 130–6 dec (KC Wessels 34; J Srinath 4–33)
Playing It My Way: My Autobiography Page 11
