The news that Sachin Tendulkar will retire after his 200th Test has been rightly met around the cricket world with widespread tribute.
It has also only recently been announced that his 200th match will be played at his home ground, the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai so there will be an opportunity for the Mumbai to say the final goodbye to India’s and quite possibly the game’s greatest player.
This column is not debating who is or isn’t the world’s best, but an opportunity to give an insight to you, genuine supporters of our great game, into what it was like to come up against Sachin in the heat of battle.
As a cricketer, you want to challenge yourself against the best. Whether it be with bat or ball in hand, the thrill of the fight is what drives you to put in your preparation in the nets, on the field and in the gymnasium.
The mental rehearsals you go through as you prepare to come up against your opponent allow you the opportunity to strive for consistency. These are the things that went through my mind when I was coming up against batsmen in Test cricket.
My philosophy was to prepare as well as I could physically so that mentally I was ready to go – give myself the best chance so I could get out there, relax and enjoy the challenge.
Coming up against Sachin, I knew that my margin for error was low – he could put a good delivery away with ease so I needed to be spot on from ball one, no warm-up balls to allow him to settle.
So how did we try to get Sachin out?
If there was bounce and carry in the pitch, we would look to bowl a fourth-stump or fifth-stump line on a good length, the definition of ‘good’ being a length that Sachin would endeavour to get forward to if he could and potentially look to drive the ball through the offside.
If there was less bounce and carry, like on some Indian pitches, our line would be straighter to hit off stump. We would also use the bouncer on occasion. Sachin always used a heavy bat so we thought early on it was a good option to hurry him up and possibly force a mistake.
As a team we won some battles against him, and personally I was able to force an error early, yet you only have to look in the record books to see the times we did not get him early, and the scores that resulted.
If Plan A did not come off, other options included bowling wide of off stump with a strong offside field to try and dry up the runs, or having five fielders on the leg side and bowling to hit the stumps every ball.
Others things we tried were cutters and changing the seam position to see if the ball would behave differently off the pitch.
The absolute key to bowling in Test cricket, and certainly bowling to Sachin, was patience. Build up scoreboard pressure through aggressive, disciplined bowling and positive body language.
I thoroughly enjoyed my one-on-one battles with Sachin, even when it was not quite going my way. I always had the mindset that I was only one ball away from getting him out – it did not always work out like that though!
I did manage to get him out a few times: bowled, lbw and caught behind were the modes of dismissal. I do remember having an lbw decision go my way at the ‘Gabba in Brisbane when Sachin padded up.
The replays clearly showed it was missing the stumps but you would not have known from Sachin’s demeanour – he accepted the umpire’s decision and walked to the pavilion.
That is what will stay with me: that a superstar of a player was so incredibly humble and respectful, yet remained a fierce competitor on the field.
I would like to wish Sachin all the best for his retirement. He has been a credit to himself, his family and Indian cricket.
The game of cricket will be poorer for his absence.
Ritesh Misra
Roar Guru
"a superstar of a player was so incredibly humble and respectful, yet remained a fierce competitor on the field".. What a wonderful tribute to one of the best players ever, well said Dizzy
Greg
Roar Rookie
Very interesting insight, thanks Dizzy
Hemant Gandhi
Guest
Hello Jason, Wonderful article. But I have a question I always wanted to ask, which has nothing to do with this article. Hope you dont mind. I always admired your fighting spirit when you were batting (more than your bowling). I think aussie team won more tests because of second half batting and your contribution was always terrific. But you were dropped from tests after scoring a 200 and you never played another test. How did you handle such an incident? I am a management coach and I have seen many parallels happening in corporate world, so is very curious to find out. Rgds
Ashok Sridharan
Guest
If I remember right, Sachin said that the actual words Harbhajan Singh used were "teri maa ki", which is a very common cuss used in the northern part of India where Harbhajan comes from. Its perfectly possible that Sachin was telling the truth (or at least, believed what Harbhajan told him). Symonds could well have mistaken the 'maa ki' for monkey.
Ashok Sridharan
Guest
Spot on mate. My first impression when I saw that incident, was that the ball was definitely hitting the stumps.Subsequent viewings have only reinforced that view... and I'm an Indian, from Bombay too (my childhood home is less than 5 kilometres from Sachin's).
Jason Gillespie
Guest
Thank you for all the comments on my article. Glad you all enjoyed reading it. Cheers, Jason.
Vinod Pathiyal
Guest
this is what strategy is all about. the expressions in the face of gilly and fieldsmen gave us an idea of the traps they set and the proper execution by jason. jason could do it, that was most important. now ishant, are you watching this?
Naman Gupta
Guest
Jason gillespee was a brilliant cricketor, and a very good fast bowler. Had he been playing for another team he would have had a lot more wickets. But unfortunately number of games he played for Australia were diminished because of Australia's amazing bowling attack with warne, lee, kasper, mcgrath, stuart macgill, stuart clark he didn't end up playing a lot of games. This is a brilliant article from jason on an all time great.
Walter
Guest
How on earth can you say that? Ricky Ponting and co will obviously think Symmo was right, Harbhajan's team will back Harbhajan-its like a court case and you guys couldnt prove that Harbhajan had abused Symmo! Plus, what is the proof that Ricky and Symmo were not lying? Why such one sided views when you are not privy to what actually transpired? What makes you think Ricky was not lying, but Sachin was? Get your rose tinted glasses off. As a neutral, I am sure whom I would rather trust between Ricky and Sachin, and its not the former!
Praveen
Guest
"While you blokes saw him as the ultimate challenge the umps seemingly saw him as the ultimate dismissal." Ultimate observation!! Never ever had that view point until now :) Wonder how the umpires for the upcoming send off series react - they definitely would not want to be un-popular walking in the streets of Kolkata or Mumbai :P
Prar
Guest
Perhaps "off the mark and stupid" - but true nonetheless. Out of the great trnity of "1990s" batsmen - Tendulkar, Steve and Lara. It was Lara who was most susceptible to the uber fast guys.
jonty23
Guest
As an eg. Lara by contrast had Zero against any real fast bowlers till 2003- after which he then got 4 against Lee and Flintoff on basically dead pitches. None whatsoever in the 1990s.......Possibly the most off the mark stupid comment i`ve read on the roar! For a start the article is a tribute to Sachin and a very good one. Lara`s record and his ability has long been mentioned with Sachin and many of the great bowlers of that era always refer to both as their best and challenging opponents. Both greats of the game!
Yashonfire
Guest
Even Shane Warne tried 'chin music' against Sachin out of desperation, now, that tells you something! Yes, with his heavy bat and miniature frame and a history of injuries, he was slightly vulnerable against the shorter ball, but so was every other lesser mortals including Ponting! By the same yard stick one uses to call Tendulkar 'wobbly on the hook', Ponting can be described as a 'terrible poker' against the out swinger in the channel. Tendulkar is no robot, but is undoubtedly one of the greatest mortals ever to pick up a cricket bat and a role model as a human being too. Just ask any bowler who has bowled against him how difficult it was when he was on song. The man's average in Australia in tests is 58.53(despite being at the receiving end of close to double figures debatable umpiring decisions across all formats in Australia-just go and check each of his dismissal videos from 91-92, especially in the 99-2000 series)and I don't think Lee, Gillespie, a young McGrath n Kasprowicz were not fast enough or they hadn't tried enough bouncers. With his so called 'weakness', he scored over 50,000 first class runs including a century of international centuries. Let's respect the man instead of taking a jab at him.
Prafulla
Guest
Sachin a man of high respect....Superb tribute Jason.... .great tribute to best batsman in the world by best bowler......
Prafulla
Guest
Sachin a man of high respect....Superb tribute Jason.... .great tribute to best batsman in the world by best bowler......
Prar
Guest
The guy has multiple classic hundreds against virtually every great fast bowler in the past 25 years. By "fast"- I mean real fast 145/150+ ks. As an eg. Lara by contrast had Zero against any real fast bowlers till 2003- after which he then got 4 against Lee and Flintoff on basically dead pitches. None whatsoever in the 1990s.
WoobliesFan
Guest
What a great read and refreshing article. A legend bowling to a legend. Thanks so much for sharing Dizzy.
Jorji Costava
Guest
Great article and very interesting. If I was bowling to him, I would have given him loads of chin music. I don't think he was terribly keen on the head hunters and was wobbly on the hook.
SalmonMariner
Guest
Lovely generous tribute Dizzy.
Jason Gillespie
Guest
Yes the incidents in Sydney were certainly regrettable. I really felt for Andrew Symonds.