Playing It My Way: My Autobiography

by Sachin Tendulkar

  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 i
t 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.

  Bhajji’s assault forced Graeme Smith to push his fielders back and so I walked up to Bhajji again to say that he could stop trying to hit every ball now; he could just tap the ball and run. Our partnership yielded 76 very valuable runs and when Bhajji was finally out for 40 with the score on 323 we were within striking distance of the South African total. Eventually we managed a two-run lead.

  Our bowlers started well in the South African second innings and Bhajji was again simply brilliant. He snapped out the first four South African wickets with just 64 on the board and when Zaheer picked up AB de Villiers with the score on 98, we started to believe a series win was possible. Ashwell Prince got out with the score on 130 and we needed just one more wicket to get into the tail. Instead, Kallis and Mark Boucher put together a match-saving partnership. Kallis played a superb innings despite nursing a rib injury and his second hundred of the match took the game and also the series beyond us. We were left to bat out the last day for a draw, which we did fairly comfortably.

  Looking back, this was our best chance to win a series in South Africa. With half the side out for 98, all we needed was one final burst to roll over the opposition, but instead we let South Africa off the hook. Bhajji took seven wickets, but unfortunately the fast bowlers weren’t quite so successful at the other end. In normal circumstances, a 1–1 series result in South Africa would be considered a really good performance, but this was clearly a contest we should have won.

  Weighty matters

  The Test series was followed by a one-day series, which in effect would start our preparations for the 2011 World Cup. Annoyingly, I injured my hamstring right at the start of the series and was forced to return to India. Before leaving, I asked every member of the squad to make a pledge. I told my team-mates that with the World Cup in the subcontinent approaching, which was one of the most significant competitions of our lives, it was important for everybody to sacrifice something ahead of the tournament. My suggestion was to lose 3 kilos each and become a fitter side in the process.

  I kept my promise and in fact lost 3.8 kilos. Some of my team-mates did so as well. To do this I had to watch my diet and was on salads after returning to Mumbai. I underwent a rigorous rehabilitation programme on my hamstring under the watchful eyes of Patrick Farhat, physio of the Mumbai Indians, and also hit the gym regularly to strengthen my upper body. The World Cup was promising to be the biggest tournament of my life. It was the one title that had eluded me and there was a good chance it would be my last crack at becoming a world champion – and on home soil too.

  * * *

  India in Bangladesh 2010

  1st Test. Chittagong. 17–21 January 2010

  India 243 (SR Tendulkar 105*, V Sehwag 52; S Al-Hasan 5–62, S Hossain 5–71) and 413–8 dec (G Gambhir 116, VVS Laxman 69*, A Mishra 50, SR Tendulkar 16; Mahmudullah 2–52)

  Bangladesh 242 (Mahmudullah 69, M Rahim 44; Z Khan 3–54, A Mishra 3–66) and 301 (M Rahim 101, T Iqbal 52; A Mishra 4–92, I Sharma 3–48)

  India won by 113 runs

  2nd Test. Dhaka. 24–27 January 2010

  Bangladesh 233 (Mahmudullah 96*, M Ashraful 39; I Sharma 4–66, Z Khan 3–62) and 312 (T Iqbal 151, J Siddique 55, S Hossain 40; Z Khan 7–87)

  India 544–8 dec (SR Tendulkar 143, R Dravid 111, MS Dhoni 89, G Gambhir 68, V Sehwag 56; S Islam 3–86) and 2–0

  India won by 10 wickets

  Indian won the series 2–0

  South Africa in India 2010

  1st Test. Nagpur. 6–9 February 2010

  South Africa 558–6 dec (HM Amla 253*, JH Kallis 173, AB de Villiers 53; Z Khan 3–96)

  India 233 (V Sehwag 109, S Badrinath 56, SR Tendulkar 7; DW Steyn 7–51) and 319 (f/o) (SR Tendulkar 100, H Singh 39; DW Steyn 3–57, PL Harris 3–76)

  South Africa won by an innings and 6 runs

  2nd Test. Kolkata. 14–18 February 2010

  South Africa 296 (HM Amla 114, AN Petersen 100; Z Khan 4–90, H Singh 3–64) and 290 (HM Amla 123*; H Singh 5–59, A Mishra 3–78)

  India 643–6 dec (V Sehwag 165, VVS Laxman 143*, MS Dhoni 132*, SR Tendulkar 106; M Morkel 2–115)

  India won by an innings and 57 runs

  Series drawn 0–0

  Australia in India 2010 – The Border-Gavaskar Trophy

  1st Test. Mohali. 1–5 October 2010

  Australia 428 (SR Watson 126, TD Paine 92, RT Ponting 71, MG Johnson 47; Z Khan 5-94, H Singh 3–114) and 192 (SR Watson 56; I Sharma 3–34, Z Khan 3–43)

  India 405 (SR Tendulkar 98, SK Raina 86, R Dravid 77, V Sehwag 59; MG Johnson 5–64) and 216–9 (VVS Laxman 73*, SR Tendulkar 38; BW Hilfenhaus 4–57, DE Bollinger 3–32)

  India won by 1 wicket

  2nd Test. Bangalore. 9–13 October 2010

  Australia 478 (MJ North 128, RT Ponting 77, TD Paine 59, SR Watson 57; H Singh 4–148, PP Ojha 3–120) and 223 (RT Ponting 72; Z Khan 3–41, PP Ojha 3–57)

  India 495 (SR Tendulkar 214, M Vijay 139; MG Johnson 3–105) and 207–3 (CA Pujara 72, SR Tendulkar 53*)

  India won by 7 wickets

  India won the series 2–0

  New Zealand in India 2010

  1st Test. Ahmedabad. 4–8 November 2010

  India 487 (V Sehwag 173, R Dravid 104, H Singh 69, SR Tendulkar 40; DL Vettori 4–118, JS Patel 3–135) and 266 (H Singh 115, VVS Laxman 91, SR Tendulkar 12; CS Martin 5–63, LRPL Taylor 2–4)

  New Zealand 459 (KS Williamson 131, JD Ryder 103, BB McCullum 65, LRPL Taylor 56; PP Ojha 4–107) and 22–1

  Match drawn

  2nd Test. Hyderabad (Deccan). 12–16 November 2010

  New Zealand 350 (TG McIntosh 102, MJ Guptill 85, JD Ryder 70; Z Khan 4–69, H Singh 4–76) and 448–8 dec (BB McCullum 225, KS Williamson 69, TG McIntosh 49; S Sreesanth 3–121)

  India 472 (H Singh 111*, V Sehwag 96, VVS Laxman 74, G Gambhir 54, R Dravid 45, SR Tendulkar 13; DL Vettori 5–135, TG Southee 3–119) and 68–0 (V Sehwag 54*)

  Match drawn

  3rd Test. Nagpur. 20–23 November 2010

  New Zealand 193 (JD Ryder 59, BB McCullum 40; I Sharma 4–43, PP Ojha 3–57) and 175 (TG Southee 31; I Sharma 3–15, H Singh 3–56)

  India 566–8 dec (R Dravid 191, MS Dhoni 98, G Gambhir 78, V Sehwag 74, SR Tendulkar 61; DL Vettori 3–178, CS Martin 2–82)

  India won by an innings and 198 runs

  India won the series 1–0

  India in South Africa 2010

  1st Test. Centurion. 16–20 December 2010

  India 136 (SR Tendulkar 36; M Morkel 5–20, DW Steyn 3–34) and 459 (SR Tendulkar 111*, MS Dhoni 90, G Gambhir 80, V Sehwag 63;
DW Steyn 4–105)

  South Africa 620–4 dec (JH Kallis 201*, HM Amla 140, AB de Villiers 129, AN Petersen 77, GC Smith 62; I Sharma 2–120)

  South Africa won by an innings and 25 runs

  2nd Test. Durban. 26–29 December 2010

  India 205 (VVS Laxman 38, SR Tendulkar 13; DW Steyn 6–50, LL Tsotsobe 2–40, M Morkel 2–68) and 228 (VVS Laxman 96, SR Tendulkar 6; LL Tsotsobe 3–43, M Morkel 3–47, DW Steyn 2–60)

  South Africa 131 (HM Amla 33; H Singh 4–10, Z Khan 3–36) and 215 (AG Prince 39*; S Sreesanth 3–45, Z Khan 3–57, H Singh 2–70)

  India won by 87 runs

  3rd Test. Cape Town. 2–6 January 2011

  South Africa 362 (JH Kallis 161, HM Amla 59, AG Prince 47; S Sreesanth 5–114, Z Khan 3–89) and 341 (JH Kallis 109*, MV Boucher 55; H Singh 7–120)

  India 364 (SR Tendulkar 146, G Gambhir 93; DW Steyn 5–75) and 166–3 (G Gambhir 64, SR Tendulkar 14*)

  Match drawn

  Series drawn 1–1

  23

  WORLD CUP 2011

  The 2011 World Cup was jointly hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and we launched our campaign against Bangladesh in the very first game of the competition on 19 February in Dhaka. As we knew only too well, having lost to them in the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean, Bangladesh can be a dangerous one-day side and at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur they had raucous crowd support.

  The general excitement was the first thing that struck us when we arrived in Bangladesh. Every time we went for practice there were close to 30,000 people outside the ground waiting to catch a glimpse of the cricketers. Most of them didn’t have tickets for the game, but they were happy just to be there singing, dancing and enjoying the moment. The passionate and enthusiastic Dhaka crowd undoubtedly added a unique dimension to the tournament.