With 1223 runs in the Ranji season and an India debut, 2014 was the best year of Kedar Jadhav’s life. But he also suffered the worst injury of his career so far, and is struggling to make runs amid expectations this time

Amol Karhadkar28-Jan-2015January: Century against Mumbai in Mumbai. That too in the Ranji Trophy knockouts. February: Two-crore (20 million) rupee purse in the IPL auction. April-May: A decent outing in the IPL. July-August: Three match-winning knocks for India A in a quadrangular in Australia. November: ODI debut.Kedar Jadhav has no qualms in admitting that 2014 was the best year of his life so far. But the Maharashtra batsman is quick to add that the year also taught him the real meaning of the cliché about cricket being a “great leveller”. Amid all the memorable achievements, the batsman also suffered the worst injury of his career.When Jadhav reached Australia for the quadrangular series in July, little did he know that he had fractured his wrist. The physio left it up to him whether to pull out of the tournament or to play through pain. The gutsy cricketer chose the option and mauled bowling attacks comprising Ben Cutting, Pat Cummins, Gurinder Sandhu and Sean Abbott to star in India A’s title win.At the end of what he described as his “best overseas tour”, Jadhav was told by the physio “not to lift the bat for two-and-a-half months”. “For the first time since I held a plastic bat as a child, I couldn’t hold a bat for so long,” Jadhav says. “It was frustrating but I knew I had to do it to get back in shape.”The worst impact of his injury was on his preparations for the Ranji Trophy. The injury layoff meant he was not available for Duleep Trophy and his first duel with the red ball would be in the Ranji Trophy. To add to his woes, he was carrying an excess baggage of expectations after the dream run he had with the bat last season.The “1223 season”, as he refers to it, saw him garner the fourth-highest tally for a batsman in a Ranji season. His six hundreds were also only next to VVS Laxman’s eight in 1999-2000.”A 1223 season is nothing but a dream season. Maybe I will get close to scoring 1000 runs again but I doubt if I will ever score 1223 in a season again,” Jadhav says. “Naturally everyone was expecting a lot more from me. So far I haven’t been able to live up to them, which is disappointing. But I am happy that the team is playing more responsibly.”Forget about nearing the 1000-run mark, Jadhav hasn’t been able to get close to half a thousand this season. In nine innings, Jadhav has tallied 276 runs. He attributes his mediocre run to lack of preparation and hopes to improve on it as Maharashtra close in on their second successive knockout berth.”I didn’t get enough time to prepare for the season due to the injury. You need a lot of repetitions when it comes to being at your best with the red ball. You need to spend hours perfecting your strokes. Couldn’t do that ahead of the season and I have been suffering as a result. Hopefully, I can get into the best of shape for the knockouts.”The millions he fetched during the IPL auction and the tag of being an international cricketer were followed by Jadhav buying a swanky BMW. The car gives a sense of achievement on the back of his humble background – Jadhav’s father was a clerk in the state electricity board. He flaunts his car everywhere he goes in Pune – from his favourite coffee shop in the city in the afternoons to public appearances, which have risen considerably over the last year.But Jadhav is quick to clarify that a slight change in lifestyle hasn’t meant he has moved his feet off the ground. “For someone like me who has gone through the grind, I know the importance of domestic cricket. I would have never played for India had I not scored 1200-plus runs in a Ranji season,” Jadhav says. “When you don’t score runs, there are some people who feel you are not serious about domestic cricket. But I know whatever I am is because of my exploits in domestic cricket. And I will try and help my team in doing one step better than the last year and earn an India call-up again.”

In the high art of Pakistani fast bowling, where the short ball is mostly used as a warning, Wahab’s uncomplicated, extreme pace is an indulgence that stands out

Osman Samiuddin11-Mar-2015I’m a sucker so it took only one ball to start believing in Wahab Riaz again. It was the ball of the series in that it is the one delivery I remembered vividly enough to want to see again. For a series in which Rangana Herath took as many wickets as he did, that says something. It didn’t even get Wahab a wicket; there had been two already in the over and so naturally he was pumped.Dhammika Prasad was the recipient, from around the wicket. There had been a flirtatious rumbling between them through the Test, nothing clever, and as subtle as Liberace. Two balls before, Prasad had responded to an extended Wahab stare by dismissively shooing him away, like he was a fly. There wasn’t much pace or bounce at the Sinhalese Sports Club, though that isn’t to say it was death for pace bowlers. Junaid Khan and Wahab took 11 between them (and Junaid didn’t even bowl in the second innings). Better to say subcontinental fast bowlers could find a way on it.This ball didn’t spit up off the pitch as much as rise gradually and ominously, like a giant wave, which, even as it gathers itself, feels somehow slower than it is. Travelling at 139.1kph it wasn’t slow and neither was it super-fast. But at its peak, its threat was all-enveloping, in that there seemed nowhere Prasad could go and nothing he could do other than jerk his head away, throw his bat in front of his heart and hope. It might be deemed his victory that the ball found the bat’s shoulder, looped over gully and fetched him two runs. But to most connoisseurs of fast bowling, the image of Prasad airborne in clumsy self-preservation was the victory, if not quite the “inverted cobra” of bouncer avoidance (see Smith, Robin or Stewart, Alec).Alec Stewart is turned into a comma by Wasim Akram•Getty ImagesIt brought alive the moment and jarred it, like how movies imagine bomb blasts and the camera does a movement between vibrating and outright shaking. Though he had taken two wickets and had bowled another worthy bouncer at Prasad in the first innings, this had a quality of suddenness. It’s like being assaulted by the stun-guitar and rolling ferocity of drums that begin this song immediately after a period of silence (solemn advice: turn it up loud).

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The Pakistani bouncer is under-celebrated. Nobody much bowled them till Imran Khan came along and his developed into a really nasty one, the kind that stalks batsmen, invading their personal space. Then even Sarfraz Nawaz – big, smart Sarf – got into it, never quick, waddling to the crease like a penguin on fire, but with the one crucial ingredient for bowling bumpers: personality.Wasim Akram’s was vicious mostly because his action was so difficult to pick and the angles with which he came at the batsman. Note the fabled ones, to Sachin Tendulkar, or to Lance Cairns, and to Ewan Chatfield in his second Test; in each case the batsman is blindsided by the ball, as if it shouldn’t be there.The most dangerous was probably Shoaib Akhtar’s, his extreme pace and hyper-extension doubling, tripling its threat. It felled Lara. It felled Kirsten. It pinged Sachin. It cracked Nasser Hussain’s fingers. On November 1, 1999, he bowled one so quick to Matthew Hayden in a game against Queensland, Hayden had time only to raise his bat in back-lift and perhaps see the first blurs of life flashing before him, before the ball struck his right shoulder. Shoaib’s bouncer was so frightening he frightened himself – at least that is what it looked like when he hit Lara and Kirsten.Shoaib’s bouncer frightened batsman and bowler•Getty ImagesThere’s even a magnificent Mohammad Sami
delivery to Sachin in Bangalore, rising into his left armpit, which he fended straight to Asim Kamal at short leg, only for the chance to be dropped. It was thrilling and summed up Sami’s life in two seconds.But the Pakistani bouncer is not the weapon it is for others, because it is almost a counter-intuitive impulse. It is impossible, for instance, to imagine a Pakistani fast bowler winning a series the way Mitchell Johnson did, or West Indian bowlers used to. Pakistani fast bowling, of fuller lengths, is generally high art. It has been known to beat batsmen for pace, sure, but it’s always accompanied by swing, some seam, and plenty of smarts. The bouncer is something they reduce themselves to when they are bored of being highbrow and fancy (at one stage, the Ws used to bounce only to make the ball older). Remember Indiana Jones resignedly taking out the gun on the sword guy? That’s Pakistan and the bouncer, although it also works as a little reveal occasionally: boy, don’t mess with us.Wahab has a terrific bouncer, and right now his ability to consistently bowl a mean, quick one is worth as much as anything else he bowls. It has a little to do with the air around us, heavy still with the feats of Johnson. Who, after all, wouldn’t want a low-arm, left-armed seriously quick bowler who sprays it everywhere but also gets it magnificently, unavoidably right?I don’t think I had actually stopped believing in Wahab per se. It was just that it was easier to believe more in others and, even, heretically, in other methods. Never has Pakistani fast bowling been higher art than in this last decade. It hasn’t been so much about how fast they bowl – though the national obsession remains – but how much they can do with the ball; Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir, Junaid Khan, even Umar Gul were not defined by the singularity of their speeds. Sami, in fact, did plenty on his own to shake the faith in pure pace.Waqar makes Nasser Hussain duck at Lord’s in 2001•Getty ImagesNever has it been higher farce either; every new genius, new waif has arrived as a clown, made of glass, and soon disappeared. Amid so many absences, and with smarter, slower bowlers around, Pakistan could do with someone as uncomplicated as Wahab. He is an indulgence, sure, but also a reminder that it’s never ever a bad thing to have a really, really fast bowler.This, at least, was the rationale of Waqar Younis when he returned to coach Pakistan last year. He had a few bowlers around, good ones too, but there was a kind of sameness, if not in method then in impact. These bowlers could work out and work their way through batting orders rather than explode upon one. His first stint as coach had produced a fairly productive period with Wahab, though Waqar’s worries over his wrist and release were never erased.But this time he stopped worrying excessively about the mechanics of Wahab’s action. Instead he chose to go about him the way you imagine Imran would have with a young Waqar. He had a gut feeling this could be his time. So he had a little life chat with him. He reminded him that he was 29 and that it was about time he started bowling like he was the man, like he was the leader.Perhaps in Wahab, Waqar saw a little of himself, the energy, the presence, the ability to strike. “For me, he’s always been a match-winner, the go-to bowler who you turn to when things are down,” Waqar had said just before the Australia series last year. “When you talk about having an X factor, he’s one of those. I haven’t taught him anything, do this, do that. I just told him, it’s about time, get your act right. I don’t think you can change much, but whatever resources you have – I mean he bowls 145kph and above, and he’s become smarter as well.”Imran Khan’s bouncer invaded your personal space•Getty ImagesHow hard is it really to believe in pure pace? Wahab stood out at the Champions League, and despite an injury that forced him out of much of the winter, he has been the central force in Pakistan’s attack during the World Cup. Here he has been the driving force, the one whose energy the rest have fed off, and the one, above all, who represents the durability of Pakistan’s pace resources. It is a period that has matched the verve of his Test debut, or the Mohali semi-final, one-off moments where it really felt that Pakistan had come upon a thoroughbred.The suspicion that he could still have days like that Asia Cup nightmare in 2012, when his day’s work read 4-0-50-0, is not entirely gone; that his action remains such a delicate, tightly sprung work of the human body that one tiny glitch could see him unravel completely. He still goes for runs. His ODI economy rate since July is actually up on his career figures. Some deliveries, with nothing to them, still look eminently hittable. But those days when he didn’t look like taking a wicket to boot haven’t come round that often: his wickets are coming much cheaper, much quicker.There has been nothing especially fancy. He has controlled and used lengths well, not overdoing changes in pace. The intent has been most visible in his run-up, rushing in with so much energy, so straight and direct it’s easy to see him – and not the ball – continuing down the pitch and clattering into batsmen. When he has got his lines straight most batsmen have had to think solely about protecting their wickets and not which of the ten attacking shots they can play; that inversion is a win. Mostly, though, I think it could just be the realisation that he is Wahab Riaz, a Genuine Pakistan Fast Bowler, and the force of that designation is seeing him through.

A look at how the eight teams stack up for the USACA T20 National Championship

Peter Della Penna02-Apr-2015Group ACentral East
The squad wound up on the receiving end of some very harsh beatings in last year’s tournament. On paper, they have the weakest team in the group mainly owing to a lack of overall depth. At the top of the order, they are led by captain Fahad Babar, who was USA’s leading scorer at last October’s ICC WCL Division Three in Malaysia. Central East also hold one of the country’s best slow bowlers in offspinner Muhammad Ghous. They are also boosted by the presence of former USA wicketkeeper Ashhar Mehdi, but they will be heavily dependent on Babar to keep them competitive in matches.Central West Central West competed hard at this tournament in 2014 but ultimately ended winless. They may find it hard going again this year with Usman Shuja and Orlando Baker absent. The region’s talent drain took another big hit with the retirement of Sushil Nadkarni and the departure of young allrounder Ryan Corns, who has relocated to Australia. On the plus side, they have former Tamil Nadi Ranji Trophy representative Dhandapani Devarasan back for the second year in a row. The squad also contains the promising fast bowler Shuja Naqvi, who spent the winter training in Australia at the Darren Lehmann Academy. They’ll be coached once again by former Pakistan international Asif Mujtaba.New YorkDespite being without Massiah and Marshall, New York are traditionally rich with talent and still remain a contender. Adam Sanford, who took three wickets in the curtailed final, is missing this year but has been replaced in the squad by another former West Indies Test bowler in Jermaine Lawson. Current USA allrounder Karan Ganesh should play a key role in their fortunes while Akeem Dodson, Barrington Bartley, Nicholas Standford and the big hitting Quasen Alfred will all be pushing hard to get back into the USA squad for next month.USA Development XIThis squad is a mixed bag. It features several Los Angeles area talents including last year’s USACA T20 Nationals MVP, Nisarg Patel. Former Gujarat legspinner Timil Patel, who toured with USA in Malaysia last year, is also a key component and can provide middle-order runs as well. Two players to keep an eye on who are consistently on the doorstep to selection are fast bowlers Jasdeep Singh, who impressed last year with the Central West, and Hammad Shahid.Group BAtlanticAtlantic boast one of the better bowling attacks in the tournament, including two good spinners in Ryan Persaud and Danial Ahmed, as well as experienced pacers in Imran Awan and Adil Bhatti. Their batting, which was slightly weak last year, is boosted by the addition of former USA international Andy Mohammed. Charan Singh and Raj Bhavsar will be eager to build on encouraging performances they had in 2014.North EastThe weakest team in Group B, they may wind up going winless with a squad that is largely inexperienced. Hard-hitting Sharaz Baksh and former Karnataka player Aditya Mishra, their opening combo from last year, are not in this year’s traveling party with Mishra now playing for North West. The squad does have a few players with the ability to clear the ropes in captain Twain Walter, Akil Husbands and Jonathan Bonner but the deck will be stacked against them.North WestAfter finishing with two wins from three games last year, North West have gotten much stronger and enter as the clear tournament favorites. Two major additions to the team are wicketkeeper Ritesh Kadu, who played last year for South West, and Mishra, who turned out for the North East in 2014. They are the two players with the best chances of filling the vacancies left in the USA squad by the retirements of Nadkarni and Aditya Thyagarajan. The team is a phenomenal fielding group and has outstanding depth with captain Srini Santhanam, Pranay Suri, Saqib Saleem, Krish Goel, Pranay Suri, Naseer Jamali, Vibhav Altekar all having represented USA at junior or senior level.South EastBehind the solid captaincy of Japen Patel, South East made a surprising run to the final in 2014. Anything less than a semifinal spot would be a disappointment with the core of last year’s team returning. Besides the explosive Steven Taylor, the team also boasts a solid crew of young talent in Dunae Nathaniel, Shaquille Forbes, Kushal Ganji and Omari Williams. While they will miss last year’s USACA T20 leading wicket-taker, former Windward Islands legspinner Camilus Alexander, the squad’s batting strength is enhanced by the return of opener Timothy Surujbally.

Not just with the bat, not just with the ball, not just while fielding. JP Duminy led Delhi Daredevils with an enthusiastic and energetic approach against Sunrisers Hyderabad

Arun Venugopal in Visakhapatnam18-Apr-2015JP Duminy is among the first to emerge from the Delhi Daredevils dug-out during the innings break. He goes up to the practice wicket and fires away darts from round the stumps. Duminy has probably done enough with the bat already: coming in at No. 3, he has scored 54 off 41 deliveries to push his team’s total to 167. But Duminy thinks there is more to be done. He is proved right.With two left-handed openers in David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan, Duminy waits for only as long as the second over to deploy himself. He also shuffles his bowling pack niftily, using four of them in six overs. Sunrisers Hyderabad have by then zoomed to 50 with all their wickets intact.Duminy brings himself back. The first ball goes with the arm. The result is Dhawan’s dislodged bails. Two balls later, Duminy dives to his right and springs up with the ball, and a cry of delight. He has sent back his opposite number, Warner. This is more Duminy the captain at work than Duminy the bowler. Spreading the field out on the leg side, he had handed out the invite for an easy single or two. Duminy then seals the deal with a generously flighted delivery. Warner twirls his bat too early. Leading edge. End of story.Time for bowler Duminy to recede into the background. Time for leader Duminy to front up. He is chattier than usual, but isn’t animated. Another round of bowling shuffle ensues. Three spinners – Imran Tahir, Amit Mishra and Yuvraj Singh – are pressed into action. Meanwhile, KL Rahul and Ravi Bopara have rebuilt smartly, and are looking to amp up the scoring.Duminy recalls Angelo Mathews, who went for 12 runs in his first over. Rahul jumps out of his crease and mistimes his stroke. Ball gets plenty of hang time. Domnic Muthuswami comes underneath the ball nervously from mid-off, and spills it. Duminy doesn’t say anything. Next ball, Rahul flits across his stumps, a tad too much, and Mathews hits the stumps. Duminy waits till the end of the over, and goes up to Muthuswami and has a quiet word, probably about the drop. Hands-on but not overbearing.The chase, however, is hotting up. Bopara has woken up from his slumber and is tonking them all. Tahir sends back Naman Ojha just before the strategic timeout. Duminy has a hand in this, too, hurling himself forward from point to take the catch. 48 required off 24 balls. Duminy returns with the ball after the interval. Bopara is in no mood for pleasantries and whacks the first ball over long-off for six.Duminy is probably seeing parallels of his own innings here: conservative beginning, gradual gear-shifting and then a sprint in the home stretch. Maybe he also remembers he has carved up Bopara for two fours in the slog overs – including one that nearly rammed into the bowler’s knee – and a six. He didn’t spare Dale Steyn either, slapping a shortish delivery over long-on for six. But Duminy is in no mood for return gifts here and bowls one full and wide. Bopara pursues the lofted shot but is caught at long-off.There is still Eoin Morgan to contend with. No problem, says Duminy as he goes round the wicket. Morgan backs away, is late on his shot, and once again Duminy has found the stumps. Surely, he has done enough now? Not yet, as Karn Sharma and Ashish Reddy lay into Tahir and Mathews.Ten needed off six now. Duminy has saved up Nathan Coulter-Nile, Daredevils’ most effective pacer, for this. There are suggestions coming in from everywhere. Yuvraj joins in, so does Mathews. Even Mayank Agarwal is gesticulating excitedly from the deep. Duminy puts the lid on the panic state and gets back to his fielding post.Coulter-Nile begins well; after two quiet deliveries and Reddy’s run-out, seven runs are needed off two. Karn almost clears the boundary, but Agarwal smartly palms the ball away even as the momentum takes him past the fence at deep midwicket. Another round of meeting ensues, as five are needed off the last ball. Duminy speaks what looks like no more than two crisp sentences. Full and wide again, and Sharma holes out to long off.Fifty-four runs, four crucial wickets at less than six an over and some proactive captaincy. That’s the stuff team owners and fantasy-league addicts dream of. Duminy calls the impact he has had on the match a “blessed thing”. Daredevils now have two wins in a row. Rest assured the streak will extend if Duminy has more such blessed days at the office.

Selection chairman Rod Marsh and Cricket Australia are extremely eager to ensure that the glow of home victories does not allow the team to take their eyes off the main game of sustained success away from home

Daniel Brettig30-Mar-2015So Australia have won a World Cup they expected to win, and celebrated it with gusto. Now the team’s planners are turning immediate attention to earning the tag of greatness – something that cannot be done with victories at home, no matter how many or by how great a margin.When the chairman of selectors Rod Marsh unveils the touring squads for the West Indies and England, the list of Cricket Australia contracted players and the squad for an Australia A tour of India, they will all be geared towards the objective of much improved overseas performance.No amount of World Cup winners’ beer or champagne can wash away the memories of Ashes defeats in England in 2005, 2009 and 2013, nor that of hidings at the hands of India on the subcontinent in 2013 and Pakistan in the UAE last year. Marsh was a befuddled observer in the stands during the latter three defeats, and has spent as much of his time this summer pondering the best combinations for the West Indies and England as he has on the more immediate challenges of the World Cup.During the Boxing Day Test, Marsh told ESPNcricinfo how CA and the selectors were extremely eager to ensure that the glow of home victories does not allow the team to take their eyes off the main game of sustained success away from home. In doing so, he acknowledged that this would be a far harder nut to crack.”The minute we take our eye off the ball with the West Indies for example, the minute we start getting funky with selections or the way we play against the West Indies, you know exactly what’s going to happen, you’re going to get beaten,” Marsh said. “That’s not what we want to do going into the Ashes, we want to win every series we play.”Until such time as we do that, we won’t be a great side. We want to get better at playing at home, but we also want to get a hell of a lot better at playing away from home. We’ve just got to do it if we want to be a great side, and we’ve got to find a way to do it.”Whether we have a close look at the players we select and think ‘righto, if we go to the subcontinent we’ve got to find our best players of spin bowling’, how do we do that, we’ve got to find out how many good players of spin bowling we have. And that can be on A tours or can be on replicating conditions at home.”To that end, the A tour selections for India, a tour to take place towards the back end of the Ashes series in England and ahead of a third Test tour of the year, to Bangladesh in October, will take on added importance. Never again does Marsh want an Australian team to look so inept and so shell-shocked by the experience of India as was the team of Michael Clarke and Mickey Arthur in 2013, when their on-field confusion led to the breakdown of the team off the field and the regrettable episode dubbed “Homeworkgate”.Australia’s thrilling victory in South Africa following the 2013-14 Ashes whitewash was the most significant overseas success of recent years, but it came in conditions the team of Clarke and Darren Lehmann are most familiar and comfortable. In fact, their loss of the second Test of that series in Port Elizabeth arrived on the slowest of the three surfaces, a reminder of how much work there is to be done on Australia’s play in such climes.The West Indies will provide a useful lead-in to the Ashes, but its conditions will be challenging enough in isolation. The 2012 tour of the Caribbean was punctuated by desperately sluggish surfaces, and a series margin of 2-0 appeared more comfortable than the reality. And though England are presently down on confidence, it will take a performance of consistently high standards to retain the Ashes – survivors of the 2009 series such as Clarke, Shane Watson and Brad Haddin will attest to that.Expectations for the Test squads include the naming of 16 players for the West Indies and 17 for England, with Ryan Harris to join the tour after being at home in Australia for the birth of his first child. The likes of Glenn Maxwell and Ashton Agar find themselves vying with the Sheffield Shield’s most accomplished performers Adam Voges and Fawad Ahmed for inclusion. Maxwell and Agar went to India and England in 2013, and should they find themselves on the plane to the Caribbean will have a chance to show how much they have learned since. Australia’s graduation from good to great may well hinge on it.Possible West Indies/Ashes squad: Michael Clarke (capt), David Warner, Chris Rogers, Steven Smith, Shane Watson, Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh, Brad Haddin, Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris (England only), Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Ashton Agar/Fawad Ahmed, Peter Siddle/James Faulkner, Peter Nevill, Shaun Marsh.

BJ Watling watched New Zealand’s journey to the World Cup final from the sidelines but he has been a vital part of their Test resurgence both in front and behind the stumps

Alex Winter18-May-2015It was Iain Duncan-Smith who, as UK Conservative party leader, said do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man. It could be just as easy to misjudge softly-spoken BJ Watling’s appetite for success but he, and his New Zealand side, have captured the public’s imagination far better than Duncan-Smith ever did. Certainly there will not be a vote of no confidence about Watling based in his form of the last 18 months.Like the Conservatives in 2003, New Zealand axed their leader amid an internal mess. But unlike the Conservatives, the benefits were seen almost immediately. Ross Taylor was sacked and Brendon McCullum’s leadership has steered them to success and popularity. Watling was just eight Tests into his career when the rift occurred but, with his inexperience and seemingly general easy-going nature, was able to let the politics pass him by.”There was obviously tension around the squad at that time,” Watling told ESPNcricinfo. “It was tough for us.” A quick comment on the events of December 2012 is an accurate reflection of how the public no doubt looks back too – it was quick, like pulling off a plaster, and everyone has moved on. Watling also brushes off the Cape Town Test, the first of McCullum’s reign as captain, where New Zealand where bowled out for 45 and McCullum locked himself in his hotel room with a beer.What did Watling, playing just his ninth Test, do? “I can’t really remember,” he says genuinely. “I think we definitely learnt a lesson from then. But I don’t think we dwelled on it for too long to be fair. It happened so quickly and it was over. We fought hard in the second innings and we took a lot from that, I had a partnership with Dean Brownlie who got a hundred and it was confidence building. It was a tough series against a quality team but we’ve managed to grow from that.”From behind a locked Cape Town hotel room, McCullum plotted a route to the unprecedented success New Zealand have enjoyed in the past 18 months. And Watling has been an integral part of the Test side’s rise to No. 3 in the world – above England, ahead of the Test series that starts on Thursday, and India, whom Watling helped repel with his third Test century in a record-breaking partnership in Wellington in February 2014. It secured New Zealand a draw and a 1-0 series win, the second of four series wins in their last five.”It was a pretty proud moment,” Watling said of his 352 stand with McCullum, who made 302. “We had the 1-0 lead at the time and the incentive was there to get the win, and we hadn’t had too many at the time. We were just trying to get through every over but it was a long time out there and we often ran out of things to say to each other.”Brendon is pretty relaxed, and just plays his natural game, we had a few demons to fight but it was great to watch from the other end. For me it was staying there as long as I could.”Eleven months on, back in Wellington and Watling’s stickability was again a prized asset as he and Kane Williamson shared 365 for the sixth wicket against Sri Lanka, which this time lead to a remarkable turnaround win and another series victory. “Both were important partnerships in terms of the series and to do that twice was the most pleasing thing,” Watling says. “We’ve managed to do that a few times over the last year or so.”Do those partnerships best demonstrate the mental improvement in the squad? “Yes I think so. We’ve got a lot of fight in us. New Zealanders have always fought but the experience and the consistency in the squad now is helping. The boys are moving forward from that tough period and have a lot more confidence now.”We always believed we could do it. I guess there’s a bit more relaxed, the boys know what they’re doing, they know their roles and it’s a team who are gelling quite nicely at the moment. This team has now managed some success in different conditions now, the boys are working hard and we should put up a decent fight against England.”To do so, New Zealand will have to adjust to the Dukes ball. Their IPL contingent have had a batch sent to India to bowl with in the nets and Watling has been canvassing opinion about keeping to it, including with his first coach in Hamilton, where he moved to aged 10 from Durban.”It’s a difficult job keeping in England,” Watling says, also with the Lord’s slope to consider on Thursday. “The change in ball makes a big difference, it wobbles more than it does back home. I’ve played here a few times and I’m starting to adjust. But it varies. It can wobble randomly or zoom straight through. I did quite a bit of work with keeping coach back home, everyone’s got their own theories about how to deal with the wobble here so hopefully I can work something out.”Watling has worked out quite a lot since being handed the gloves against Zimbabwe in January 2012. He made his first Test century in that match and has since settled the debate of New Zealand’s wicketkeeper after several candidates were offered a chance.”I was fairly nervous,” Watling recalls of his first game as wicketkeeper, having started his Test career as an opening batsman. “There was lot of talk about the keeping and I had been on and off keeping throughout my career, but that Zimbabwe game was the time when Brendon decided to give up the gloves full time and bat in the middle order, it’s been good to come out the other end of that period of uncertainty.”Watling’s is not the only settled position now and New Zealand are in good shape to try to add to their four Test wins in England. A series victory would continue to raise the profile of New Zealand’s cricketers, who stepped out of the shadow of the country’s rugby players during the World Cup. Watling was included in the initial 30-man squad but didn’t feature in the tournament. But it was still a great experience from the outside.”We were playing four-day cricket at the time so we would finish and get the TV on to watch the boys,” Watling says. “They just kept playing entertaining cricket and it was awesome to see them doing well. They made the county proud.”The buzz around New Zealand was brilliant. I’m sure we gained a few more fans and hopefully we can grow the game from here and especially keep the kids involved. Rugby is obviously our number one game but hopefully we’re starting to grow the fan base and maybe off the back of the World Cup we can steal a few of those rugby players who are decent cricketers too.”

Brad Hodge on the difficulty of sledging opponents you’re friends with, being an old-timer, and losing his pants on the field

Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi18-May-2015You are one of a few 40-plus cricketers who are still active. What do you guys have that the 20-year-olds don’t?
Smart decisions. Once you get older and wiser, you make smart decisions. Once the pressure is on, experience holds you in good stead.What is the most difficult thing to do as a 40-year-old?
The hardest is to commit to training. Especially playing T20 [as a freelancer], you are not involved in a group and you have to take it upon yourself to train and make sure you do the right things. When you have a family and kids, you have to get them to school, and so your other commitments become more important.What one record are you most proud of?
Probably two. One, I was able to make a double-century for Australia. That is a really important milestone I was able to achieve. The other is playing over 250 games in first-class and T20. So for me to be able to maintain those levels for 20 years is pretty special. It just shows that you have been committed and you have been able to succeed, and your skills have lasted a fair amount of time.I made a big impact in T20. I made significant contributions in competitions like IPL year-in, year-out and I am proud of those achievements.Would you call yourself a T20 pioneer?
I did play in one of the first ever T20 matches – Leicestershire v Yorkshire in 2003. I would like to think I played a big part in shaping particular people’s skills in Australia. Aaron Finch, with whom I used to open the batting – you can see there are some similarities in the way we bat. We have talked about how we go about things. I share a lot of my knowledge playing around the world in T20 leagues and it is well respected. So, yes, I guess I was a little bit of a pioneer. And to represent your country at 39 in T20 is special.

“The game has become a lot more relaxed and slightly boring. A bit of fire has gone out of the game because everyone now plays together in different competitions”

You were the first to 5000 runs in T20 cricket. The format is not a gimmick anymore, is it?
It is pretty funny that we all – Chris Gayle, David Hussey, myself, Brendon McCullum – were neck and neck. It is not a gimmick by any stretch of imagination. In fact, the pressures of playing T20 and the expectations are huge, especially for international players in tournaments like IPL. There are so many good players out there, but you can get recycled pretty quick. So you’ve got to make sure your standards are high.What is one thing Hodge can do but Gayle cannot?
() Run between the wickets. Chris is such a strong, powerful man – his mishits go for sixes. I would probably think I hit the middle of the bat consistently more often than he does, but his mishits go 75-plus metres. And when he hits it from the middle they go 110 metres. When I hit, they go at most 95 metres. His range and power are different.What’s the safest shot in T20 cricket?
Hitting the bowler over his head with the full face of the bat. Any traditional shot, actually. Remember, there are good bowlers in T20 cricket and they are going to bowl good balls. So technically you need to still have a good defensive shot to deal with those good balls.You must thank Rahul Dravid for playing you lower down the order in the IPL in 2014?
It was an interesting move. I said to Rahul, “I should bat in the top.” He said, “Nah, nah, you should bat in the middle.” His exact words to me were that he had never seen anyone able to hit really, really good fast bowling – the Mitchell Johnsons, Dale Steyns – as well as I could. He said in Australia that you are brought up on punishing fast bowling, whereas in India batsmen are taught to punish spin bowling. In T20 all the guys who bowl the last two or three overs usually are good fast bowlers. So his theory was, if you are there on 5, 10, 30, 50 not out, you are going to be more valuable than one of the domestic players. It paid off for sure with Rajasthan Royals.What’s the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you on the cricket field?
Once, the drawstring of my pants broke as I was chasing the ball down to the boundary. My pants were hanging down to my ankles – embarrassing but quite funny.”Dravid told me that he had never seen anyone hit really, really good fast bowling as well as I could”•Getty ImagesWhat about injuring yourself while putting on your trousers while playing for Australia in a T20?
Yes! I was just pulling up my pants when I had a back spasm. I fell down and I couldn’t play for Australia. I was actually devastated.Tell us something we don’t know about you.
I race cars.With the back spasms?
Absolutely. ()The best Ashes?
2005. Edgbaston was pretty special.Who do you think are the favourites for this Ashes?
Australia will win easily.What has been your best response to a sledge?
I remember facing Glenn McGrath in domestic cricket. I played and missed a couple of times and Glenn just said: “Come on Hodgy, you’re rubbish today.” I said: “Who did you expect? Don Bradman.” McGrath and Warnie and Muralitharan were the best bowlers I faced.Do you reckon batting and the way players approach and play cricket overall has changed?
Definitely. And it is not necessarily for the good. The game has become a lot more relaxed and slightly boring. A bit of fire has gone out of the game because everyone now plays together in different competitions. You get to know people and their personalities. And it is very hard to sledge people and get the hardcore sporting atmosphere when your friendships are strong. It is an interesting dynamic you have to get your head around.

Charlotte Edwards has seen a transformation in England women’s cricket and remains at the helm at the start of the multi-format Ashes series which begins with three Royal London ODIs – the first in Taunton on Tuesday

Tim Wigmore20-Jul-2015″My first Test Match was in a skirt and now I’m a professional cricketer. And that probably says everything.”Charlotte Edwards’ career embodies the transformation in women’s cricket. She made her international debut in 1996, at the time becoming the youngest ever woman to play for England. In 19 years since she has become one of the most significant women in the history of the game, being named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year, winning an MBE and, perhaps most significantly of all, being included in the first batch of England female cricketers to be awarded a central contract last year.”Now there is a career in cricket for any young girl,” she says. “It’s unrecognisable to the game I first started playing. “You just see so many girls now interested which you couldn’t have said before. I didn’t even know a women’s team existed when I was 11 – I thought I’d have to play for the England men’s team!”It’s been a wonderful journey and I’m so pleased I’ve been on that journey. I’m so lucky I can tell young girls about that journey and make them realise how lucky they are.”Edwards’ achievements are worth recounting. She has played more women’s internationals than anyone else in history. She has captained England in over 200 internationals, including Ashes wins at home and away and World Cup and World T20 triumphs. And, after over nine years as full-time skipper – a longer time span than Andrew Strauss’ entire international career – her zeal for the job has not diminished.”There is so much more I want to achieve in the game – more World Cup wins, more Ashes wins. I wish I had a pound for every time I’m asked about retirement. That is not on my mind at all. You can play for longer these days. Every older player tells me to keep on. As long as I can do the training that’s the hard part.”You’ve got to have the passion and desire to get up and do the training, and I’ve got that in abundance. I never thought I’d play for this long and now I’m just enjoying every year as if it’s my last.”Now Edwards again has the Australians in her sights. “It’s going to be a great series. You’ve got the two best teams in the world – we’re desperate to keep hold of the Ashes, and they’re desperate to win them, so it’s going to be set up for a great contest. We’re on home soil so I’m confident – we’ve done well against them here in previous Ashes series and I’m confident we can do it again.”2015 marks a landmark in women’s Ashes cricket: the first time that every England-Australia clash will be played at a regular county ground. “There’s going to be a lot of extra media scrutiny for us around our Ashes which is obviously fantastic.”After winning the last women’s Ashes Down Under in 2013/14, Edwards had to endure some unwelcome extra scrutiny when she was criticised for her intention “to get absolutely smashed tonight.” She laughs when she is reminded of these comments. “I probably shouldn’t have said what I said. It reflects where profile of women game has got to, people were listening to what was being said. I took it as a compliment really.”The latest manifestation of the improvement in the women’s game is the success enjoyed by one of Edwards’ teammates, Kate Cross, in the Central Lancashire League this season, including taking 8 for 47 in one game.”I’ve told her it’s great but she needs to save some wickets for the Ashes.” Edwards herself is testament to the virtues of the best female cricketing talent playing extensively with men.”Without a shadow of a doubt me playing boys’ and men’s cricket until the age of 17 has enabled me to go on and play for England. You have to play some women’s cricket, but I’ll tell any young girl to play boys’ and men’s cricket for as long as you want – it only helps you, more mentally than anything, and the step to women’s international cricket is quite an easy one once you’ve had loads of stick playing men’s cricket.”It is a different game – as a batter I wouldn’t want to go and play league cricket six weeks before the Ashes,” she says, envisaging a battery of deliveries coming through at shoulder height, which she would seldom face in the women’s game.While Edwards welcomes the profile of the women’s Ashes, and the format whereby every game across the three forms of cricket counts towards the series result, she would like the format used in all bilateral series.Yet few other series involve any Tests at all: over 19 years Edwards has managed just 22 Tests, barely more than one a year. She has only played ten Tests against teams other than Australia.”We have to play more of it. It just teaches you more about the game. There is too much emphasis on T20 for women. You can learn so much from the longer format.”Edwards, who will play for Perth Scorchers this winter, also thinks that domestic cricket in England, which will include a six-team Women’s Super League from next year, could learn from Down Under. “Hopefully we will get more England players in that competition. It’s the best in the world at the moment and that is where we should be aiming. I learned a lot out there in terms of my leadership as well as improving as a player and learning a lot about the Aussies.”Australia might not feel inclined to give Edwards any assistance, giving her outstanding record in Ashes cricket: she averages 52.36 in 12 Tests, and needs just 30 more runs to become England’s highest ever Test runscorer against Australia. The records change, but Edwards’ determination to break them remains undimmed.

To quell the physical hiccups that have plagued his fledgling international career, the Australian quick is reworking his action. Will the move pay off?

Alagappan Muthu10-Aug-2015James Pattinson is 25 years old and he is in love, has been for a while, and hopes to stay this way for at least another decade. Even if the thing he loves has broken him, made him feel “lonely”, and even pushed him to tears. Fast bowling, it is not for the faint of heart.It can be rewarding though. Pattinson’s bowling average of 27.07 after 13 Tests is better than Wasim Akram’s 27.43 or Dale Steyn’s 30.33 at a corresponding time in their careers. He has 51 wickets presently, which means he has taken only three more Tests than Dennis Lillee to the mark. Talent? Check. But durability?Pattinson had suffered two severe back injuries in the space of 10 months since the 2013 Ashes. In the course of correcting that, he tweaked his hamstring in 2015. In November 2012, there was a rib complaint so severe that he hadn’t been able to breathe. Before that, he’d hurt his foot and didn’t play another Test for three months. Far too much turbulence for a career only 13 matches old. So it was time for change, and Pattinson had to abandon a front-on action with which he has bowled all his life.”I’ve spent probably the last couple of years trying to get a bit more side-on,” he said. “Just to stop the counter rotation on my back, which stops the stress fractures [of the back] from reoccurring.”Pattinson has been working on the remodel at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane, and has had help from Australia fast bowling coach Craig McDermott, Victoria bowling coach Mick Lewis and his junior coach Tim McCaskill.”The thing is if you do change your action, when you go into games, you sort of still have it in the back of your mind. But I’ve come back this time and I haven’t been thinking about my action. Everything is sort of second nature now,” Pattinson said. “I think the hard thing is just taking your time. There are days where it can be really frustrating and you don’t think it’s working, but again you just have to know that in the end everything is going to be fine as long as you put in the work and then hopefully the results will come.”That doesn’t mean there isn’t any risk attached. Even the smallest changes to your action can bring about ripple effects. Steven Finn was asked to try a shorter run-up and that didn’t work at all. Before he was forced to adjust his action, Saeed Ajmal was a world beater; now he is no longer part of the Pakistan side. In Pattinson’s case, the concern is he might lose his natural outswing.”It’s obviously one of the things you’re worried about when you change your action,” he said. “But I still do a lot of work on getting my wrist in the right position. Being side-on just means I have to finish off a bit more, finish off means to get my wrist through towards where I want the ball to go.”If the man in the mirror has been causing problems, when Pattinson looks over his shoulder, too, he’ll find hurdles to overcome with any number of young quicks gunning for a spot in the Australian team. With the Ashes lost, there are likely to be vacancies, but he can’t afford to be anything but his best to squeeze his way in – Australia like their fast bowlers fast, so much that Peter Siddle was relegated once he couldn’t summon enough pace and even the batting allrounder Mitchell Marsh bowls 140 kph.Pattinson certainly fits the bill. In the A team tri-series currently underway in India on slow, placid decks, he and his reworked action have clocked up 145kph regularly and swung the new ball too. Good signs if the selectors are looking at him for the upcoming one-day series in England.But his return has to be timed perfectly. “The first time I got injured after the Ashes in 2013, I probably rushed a little bit,” Pattinson said. “I tried to change actions, but I only spent three months doing it. I came back and I thought I had changed a bit, but it was pretty much the same so I had a stress fracture a second time.” That was in May 2014. He hasn’t played international cricket since.He was training with Pat Cummins at the time Ryan Harris retired from Test cricket and Australia needed a replacement, but wasn’t in contention because his body wasn’t at the level where it could handle the five-day game. He never wants that to happen again and has begun training smarter.”Being a young fellow, I used to run in 100 percent all the time and try to bowl 150kph in the nets, but over the last couple of years I’ve sort of prepared my training sessions better. Like ramp it up for a few overs and then work on other things. So I’m actually not going 100 percent all the time in the nets.”The way I prepare, my gym work, rehab, recovery and everything, that’s all routine now. I’m doing the same thing to make sure my body adjusts to everything and nothing is outside of what my body knows, nothing is a bit of a shock to it.”There is also emphasis on a mental checklist to ensure his comfort. “You have your routines in your mind [while training], and knowing that you’ve ticked them off, you can go out on the field with a clear mind and you know that everything has been done off the field to perform on the field.” That was a trick Pattinson learned from watching Ricky Ponting, he said, and he’s one of those who rarely got injured.Before that, Pattinson learnt from watching his big brother Darren bowl, and had been bowling the same way since he was 16 years old. Now he is realising continuing the same way could derail his career. Change was necessary, but will change be good?

M Vijay opens up about what makes him happy, the life lessons he taught himself as a teenager, and his approach to batting

Interview by Arun Venugopal21-Sep-201520:29

‘My simple thing is if you are good enough you’ll play’

How’s the hamstring?
I have been working on my rehabilitation. I think three weeks. I am in a good state now.Is it particularly frustrating to be injured at this point of your career when your batting is on the upswing?
Definitely. When you miss something at a crucial juncture of your career it’s tough at times, but you cannot do too many things about it because injuries do happen in any sport. You’ve got to take it in your stride and move forward.In the last couple of years, is there one particular innings or a session which you look back on and think, “This is where I turned things around”?
The Chennai Test match in 2013, the second innings, I really gave it a thought as a person and as a cricketer. I had been getting starts and giving it away, and there were different reasons, lots of variables behind it. At the end of the day, I was disappointed with not applying myself. You get opportunities at the international level what many people are craving for and you are missing out on it. All these factors came into my head and I got my answers in Hyderabad.How difficult was it to process all those thoughts and respond?
At that point I was really disappointed and had four-five days gap before the next Test match. I was hoping to get an opportunity there. The moment I got the feeling that I was going to play, I said, “This is it. This is for me. I just don’t want to do something really out of the box.” I just wanted to stick to my plans and if a good ball comes, so be it.I just wanted to go in and be as tight as possible, and I felt happy after that knock because I really gave it a thought and I did not play the way I wanted to play, but still got my runs.”I never think about what others say, or what you say about me”•AFPJust before the England tour you spent a lot of time with your coach, Jayakumar. Could you elaborate on what you were working on?
I was just thinking about my fitness and the conditions we would be playing in, the venues and stuff like that. That was going to be my first experience and I always wanted to play in England, at Lord’s especially, and it was just about to happen and I didn’t want to miss out by not being fit. I was concentrating on my fitness, and batting-wise I was checking on my basics, and he really helped me out during that particular phase.What were the specific things you did to cope with the moving ball?
I couldn’t get the same kind of feel in Chennai because the conditions are entirely different, but all I could do was to practise early in the morning when there is a little bit of moisture on the wicket.You used the plastic ball?
I don’t really use the plastic ball, but bowling machines helped me get an idea of how it’s going to go and how you maintain your shape.You are comfortable leaving the ball, but a lot of batsmen love to feel bat on ball all the time. Is leaving the ball as natural for you as it looks or did you have to work on it?
Every time I walk in to bat, I want to play as many balls as possible, but if it is not in my range, I will leave it. My intention is to play, but maybe I’m a little more cautious about my off stump. Maybe I could play a little more freely. If I can get 100 off 100 balls, I’m going to take it any day. I am just waiting for that moment to come.

“I wasn’t a great student. People around me were brilliant. I wouldn’t call myself a dumb guy, but I was not interested in it [academics]”

You always talk about playing a particular delivery and then switching off. How easy is it to focus on the moment alone?
It’s very difficult, but that’s what you are practising for. You practise batting for two or three hours in a day, and if you don’t believe in that then you are never going to perform, so you obviously have to let your mind and body take over in the middle rather than thinking too much ahead of it.Off the field do you do something to achieve that? Do you meditate?
Just the belief inside you – like everybody says, you’ve got to be in the now. It’s very difficult to even think about it. But all I can do is be in a happy space, do the things you really like to do and talk to yourself, motivate yourself. Because there’s no one else to help you there [in the middle].Do you talk to yourself before every ball, psych yourself up?
Not in the middle. Just the day before or something like that. In the middle, you enjoy, go out there and express yourself. That’s what I try to do, watch the ball and focus. So long it has been good.How does your visualisation process work?
I like to see things before they happen and I get a feel inside. I enjoy that if I am in that space. For me to get into that space, I need to practise. If I have done every bit of it in my practice, I think I attain it more often than not. I never keep a target and I go with a blank mind. I could get a triple-hundred, why restrict it to a hundred?As an opener, who are your reference points? Who have you tried to imbibe from?
I always liked Mark Waugh. Because he made everything look easy. He played in a fashion where everything was in rhythm. I really liked him as a youngster.I had the opportunity to share the dressing room with some of the greats. I loved the way Sachin [Tendulkar] carried himself throughout his career. I had a great opportunity to interact with him and see how he does things in different situations, so he inspired me a lot. MS Dhoni for the way he handled himself in pressure situations. [But] I didn’t want to emulate Sachin or MS. You have to pick and choose [the best attributes from each of them] and do it in your own style.Looking ahead to the South Africa series, what are you looking to get out of it?
I’m pretty excited. The only one thing I’m concentrating on at the moment is my fitness. I’m on the right track and happy about it. But I am not thinking too far ahead because there’s a month and a half to go for the Test series. All I am trying to do is work on my batting basics, my fitness and my fielding aspect of where I am going to stand.”Myself and Shikhar Dhawan are very close friends off the field. We share a lot of things apart from cricket”•AFPHow exciting is this batting group you are playing alongside? Do you compete amongst yourselves?
It’s been unbelievable because everybody is talented. It’s a healthy competition. The season and a half where we played abroad got us together. The thought process was similar, and everybody wanted to go in one direction. A lot of good things happened to us. [Even when we were losing] the atmosphere never changed. That’s one good quality and a learning for me as well, because no one even showed any hint that he was down and out. Because everybody is on the same wavelength and the same age group, it’s easy to crack a joke in a tight situation.What do you guys bond over? PlayStation?
Yes, at the moment I’m into PlayStation because that’s the only way to get into my friends’ rooms. Because everybody goes and plays PlayStation, we just try to do that as a team. It’s been good.As a batting group, is there also friendly banter where you say, “Okay, I’m going to outscore you two guys”, or things like that?
I don’t know about that because I never think that way. If Shikhar [Dhawan] is getting runs, I would like to give him the credit, like “You are batting brilliantly”. And vice-versa. That’s what he does to me. There’s nothing like, “You get 150, I get 180.” It’s about going together and going for the same cause.As a unit we are more tight now. It’s a good journey for us. Staying away from home and everything else gave us an opportunity to mingle and go about things in the right way.How have your interactions with the coaching staff been?
They have really helped us in getting a good atmosphere in the dressing room because I feel you should feel comfortable inside the dressing room to do well outside.

“I believe in love, and it’s obviously helped me as a person”

Ravi Shastri is known to be very direct.
Ravi has his own style of putting it across. He lifts the mood 100%, the energy you get onto the table. I think he has come at the right time. It’s all fallen in place. Everybody is trying to do his best to give us the best atmosphere.You have also known Sanjay Bangar from your time at Kings XI Punjab. Has he picked up little things in your batting you might not have noticed?
Yes, we always try to have a conversation about batting because he’s one guy who is never tired of talking about a particular aspect. More or less everybody, when we are off [the field], we keep discussing, “Oh, we could have done this, we could have done that.” He has always been there for us which is good.There was a time when you were out of the national team. What was the most difficult aspect during that phase?
That’s when I really thought you cannot think too much about anything. What’s happened has happened. You’ve just got to take it in your stride but move forward in a positive way. That’s all you can do as a person, because everybody is going to face problems in their lives. Life is much bigger, sport is just a phase of it.Did you try to seek out the selectors and gather their thoughts on what you needed to do to get back into the team?
Obviously I was disappointed not to be part of the World Cup. I knew I needed to get answers for that in my head first than searching it outside. My simple thing is, if you are good enough, you’ll play. I didn’t find any desperation to go and ask someone. If you are good enough and if you are practising well, and if you think you are good enough to express yourself in the middle, it’s more than enough.Rolling back the years, as a 17-year-old you took the drastic step of moving out of your parents’ house after flunking your Class XII exams. How did your parents react, especially since you are very close to your mother?
Actually I should thank my dad, even now I do. () That particular phase, if he had stopped me, I would have been a different person altogether. Not protected, but maybe I would have chosen a different field or I would have not got into cricket. I would have done something else in another extreme, but I am never a safe person.Living in a single room with two other people and having to fend for oneself doesn’t quite sound like fun…
That’s what happened. I cannot change that, and I enjoyed it. I don’t have any regrets. There was no hardship. At that particular moment I thought I should experience life and learn because I wasn’t a great student. People around me were brilliant. I wouldn’t call myself a dumb guy, but I was not interested in it [academics]. My interests were different. That did not synchronise properly with my parents and everything.I really gave it a thought and said, “What am I doing?” I didn’t get through my 12th, so basically I didn’t know anything. My father was comforting me too much because whatever I asked, he gave me, and I didn’t like that too. I had one year to complete my 12th, so I thought, let me go and live alone and see how it is. Even my close friends ask me today what I was doing back then. It’s a good feeling and you can’t tell your experiences like, “This is what happened.” It’s a nice feeling that it happened and I enjoyed it.”I want to play as many balls as possible, but if it is not in my range, I will leave it”•Getty ImagesIs it more like a riches-to-rags-to-riches story for you then?
I never believe in being rich or being low. It’s just about the way you live your life and you should be happy. [This experience gave me] immense happiness, being alone, enjoying the freedom, there is nobody to go and fall back on.There is this persona of Vijay with the tattoos and the swagger. You said once that you felt you weren’t picked for the state side because you had long hair. Is it an accurate assessment that you are a rebel?
I don’t believe in judging anybody. That’s my personal learning. Everybody has their own perception and nobody has time to prove things to everybody. So then why talk about it? If someone has done something and you can appreciate it, appreciate it, or else just move on. I am no one to go and give my view on what he has done. I built my kind of life accordingly, and it’s giving me happiness. I don’t know the definition of happiness. I just want to be happy, feel happy. I don’t go deep into anything.Sometimes on the field there are some theatrics. Once in an airport you did a Michael Jackson impression. Are these things you do to make people accept you?
Are you trying to say if you are going to wear a funky dress you are trying to attract anybody or do you wear it for yourself? I never think about what others say or what you say about me. It’s just about what I feel at that particular moment, about what I want to do. If I can do it, I am happy. I don’t want to go into your space and say, “Come and look at me.” I don’t really enjoy that.Doesn’t this mindset come with difficulties? Do you think you are misunderstood often?
I don’t that way because I don’t really have that much time to think about what someone is thinking about me. If I’m at practice, I like to practice. If I am out with my family, I like to enjoy with them. It is easy if you think it’s easy. It [perception] will change. Everything has to change. That’s the only thing that is permanent. If you are silent, people think you are arrogant. If you are silent, then people think, “Oh, he is thinking about something.” Silence gives you so many answers for one small reaction.M Vijay scored two big hundreds against Australia in 2013, which was his comeback series•BCCIHow much have love and relationships mattered to you? How have they moulded you as a person?
I believe in love. It’s obviously helped me as a person, and I am thankful I am leading a good life at the moment because I went through hardships. I am thankful to the almighty because I believe in that, and I believe in time, so everything happened for a reason.What kind of character are you in the India dressing room? Are you the joker or the introvert, or are you the serious, brooding variety?
I really don’t know. I enjoy everything and everybody’s company. I like to be among them and see them laugh. I don’t like to sit in one place and be quiet. But I don’t know whether I’m a fun person. You should ask my team-mates.What are the things you have learnt from your team-mates about life in general?For example, myself and Shikhar [Dhawan] are very close friends off the field. We share a lot of things apart from cricket. We have a mutual liking for things and discuss particular topics. I like to discuss things rather than argue. If it’s an argument, I just call it a day. () I don’t want to get into trouble. I never confront anybody. If I know I have made a mistake, I will put my hand up and accept the fact.What are the things outside the game that help you get your focus back on cricket?
I honestly believe there’s life after cricket. There’s a lot to learn, a lot of things to see. It’s just a phase of my life I have chosen, so obviously I love to do something in a field I really love. And if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t matter to me really. Because I am honestly giving my effort and trying to learn things, and pushing myself to an extent where I can feel that I have done everything. The result is like a by-product for me.Do you have heroes outside cricket?
I like [the actor] Kamal Haasan. I am a great fan of him. Obviously Rajini sir [Rajinikanth] as well, but I like Kamal sir a little more. It’s just the connect. I don’t know much about acting. I hardly even see movies, but you know, the interviews where he has spoken about a similar topic that’s running in your head. All these factors overall make him special.What are the other things that keep you in the happy space you talk about?
I love to play other sports. I love snooker. Unfortunately I can’t play [now] because of my hamstring. I am not able to surf now because of that as well. I like to experience other sports and adventure sports that give me an adrenaline rush and make me challenge myself. I don’t want to miss out on those as well, playing one sport.Has your life changed with two young children? Are you a hands-on father?
They are keeping me on my toes. I am just trying to give as much time as possible. Changing diapers and singing rhymes is a learning too for me.