When my five wickets was the kiss of death

Five wickets in Pakistan

I made an early mark, picking up three wickets in a charity game and another three against the Board President’s eleven. But Ankola played the first Test and I the second in Faisalabad, only because Ankola was injured. In the third, only two fast bowlers were played: Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar. I was included in the last Test only on the morning of the match. I picked up five wickets. It should’ve launched my career but it was the last I ever played for my country.

Why the door remained closed

There are various theories as to why I couldn’t get another game. Some said I represented MRF, which went against me in the eyes of the Delhi lobby. I had played under-22, under-25 and university cricket for Delhi before my three-year stint with MRF. Some believed selectors had their own agenda; others felt the senior fast bowlers never supported youngsters.

What do I think? Well, the competition was stiff: Kapil, Prabhakar, Sanjeev Sharma, Atul Wassan, Rashid Patel, Raju Kulkarni, Salil Ankola, Chetan Sharma, Javagal Srinath…

It’s also true Delhi never supported me. They always treated me as an outsider. As for seniors not supporting us, let’s say we didn’t have Imran Khan amongst us to nurture young talents. These days, when I see Sachin Tendulkar talking to Irfan Pathan and Laxmipathy Balaji, I wish it was with us when we were playing.

Two months after Pakistan, we toured New Zealand. We would have been far better off if somebody had told us that Kookaburra balls were different and once the little seam on it was gone you needed to bang them on the turf to gain something out of it. In India, we tended to release balls rather than bang it.

Tour in general

I shared a room with Sherry (Navjot Sidhu). He was a good motivator, he used to tell me ‘‘Baccha do this, do that’’. Tendulkar was very fond of music and would always have earphones on.

He was a good, jovial company. But on the ground, he was a different man. I remember when he was hit by Waqar and was bleeding, Imran asked him to leave the field — ‘‘Chhotu, chale ja’’. But Tendulkar made an important half century.

There’s another side to Tendulkar you rarely see — the fun side. We used to have fancy dress parties on Saturdays. Sometimes Sachin would apply lipstick — he was already so cute — now he looked cuter with his make-up.

Srikkanth was a very good captain, very supportive and always had words of encouragement. If he was still around, my career might have taken off. I wasn’t willing to be an errand boy to others.

The Javed-Manoj double act

It was inevitable that Javed Miandad and Manoj Prabhakar would have a go at each other. In one of the games I was at the non-striker’s end when the English umpires asked us what were they saying. I said ‘‘exchanging pleasantries’’.

Once I beat Javed with an outswinger and, as I staggered in on my follow-through, Javed left his crease and actually imitated my follow-through. We made good friends on that tour.

(Cricket News)