I enjoy playing Twenty20 cricket, even though it’s meant to be a slogfest for batsmen.

It’s good fun to be able to go out there in front of big crowds and put on a bit of a show. As a bowler, I like the challenge of coming up with different variations and different fields to try to combat the big hitting.

There’s a commonly held belief that the rise of the shortest form of the game will slowly erode the popularity of one-day and Test cricket, but I don’t subscribe to that theory. I think the experimentation that T20 allows has had really positive flow-on effects for the other forms of cricket. From a batting perspective, scoring in ODIs and Tests is a lot quicker these days and I think T20 has a fair bit to do with that.

We took a while to get on board the Twenty20 train in Australia. There were plenty of people who thought it might be a fad early on, which wasn’t helped with party tricks such as Andrew Johns playing a couple of games for New South Wales back in 2007. Great Rugby League player, but you’ve got to earn the cap!

The Poms may have invented it, but it’s probably fair to say that India is the country that’s really taken the ball and ran with it. The Indian Premier League has been wildly successful since its first season in 2008 and I was fortunate enough to experience it firsthand.

There’s no denying it has proven to be a huge financial windfall for a lot of international cricketers too. When Kings XI Punjab successfully bid for me at the 2011 IPL auction the successful bid was US$325,000 … and I had a broken ankle at the time! There are terms and conditions that come with that, of course. Basically, what that meant was I would go to play for Kings for roughly that amount of money per IPL season for two years with an option for a third.

I was out at a dinner with Cherie when Dad called me and told me that Kings had successfully bid for me. It’s fair to say I ordered a nice bottle of wine to go with our food that night. But that figure was actually at the lower end of what players were getting paid that year.

David Hussey and Adam Gilchrist were Punjab’s two big signings that year—they went for US$1.4 million and US$900,000 respectively.

Kings XI Punjab was my second IPL team. My first season in the competition was in 2009 when Darren Lehmann got me to play for Deccan Chargers. Boof had just taken over as coach and the whole franchise was basically starting from scratch after they finished last in the first season of the IPL the year before.

They brought in Adam Gilchrist to captain the side and had big names such as Andrew Symonds, VVS Laxman, Herschelle Gibbs and Chaminda Vaas. I wasn’t expecting to get much of a look in, to be honest.

Boof had got me over as an uncapped player (I hadn’t made my international ODI debut yet), which meant that I didn’t go through the auction—I wouldn’t have got picked up if I’d gone that way. I signed a two-year deal, which was a lot more modest than my Kings contract two years later. At the time I was just keen to learn what I could from some of those stars and gain some experience at a really high level.

I was keen to get to know all of my teammates as much as I could because it is a bit of a challenge to gel together as a team when a bunch of players are thrown together from all over the world. That’s where Boof and Gilly excelled. They’re both personable sorts of characters who are easy to get to know and are very inclusive. A few of the younger Indian fellas were a bit in awe of Gilly at the start, but they quickly realised that he valued what they brought to the team and was keen to make sure they performed as well as possible.

That series was held in South Africa because there were security concerns in India at the time. It was great to see a bit of the country. We were well looked after and stayed in beautiful hotels everywhere we went.

As it turned out I did get an opportunity in the back half of the series when West Indies quick Fidel Edwards had to leave because the Windies were going on tour in England. It took me a little while to find my feet, but Boof stuck with me and I took 3 wickets in the semifinal, which I hoped went some way to repaying his faith in me.

After falling into that semifinal—we lost our last two group games and squeaked in on net run rate—we played really well and beat the Delhi Daredevils, who had finished on top of the table. It was a huge deal for some of these big-name players who’d been around for ages to make it into the final. As you can imagine, I was pumped to get a chance at an IPL champions title.

I know some detractors look at the big money on offer and think that everyone’s just over there for a pay cheque and that it doesn’t really matter to the players. But when you get a bunch of elite cricketers together it could be a game in the park and we could be playing for sheep stations. We worked hard together to establish a good team bond and we were hell bent on getting a win.

We played Royal Challengers Bangalore at Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg in front of a huge crowd. Anyone who was there that night would know how much it meant to the players. Gilly had been braining them with the bat all season, he ended up taking Player of the Series honours, but he was out in the first over for a duck.

We didn’t bat well apart from Herschelle Gibbs, who anchored the innings with 53 not out. We struggled to 143 off our 20 overs. The crowd was already loud after every delivery, but the noise level went up every time we took a wicket.

I opened the bowling and was pleased to concede just one leg bye. It was Simmo and Indian left-armer Pragyan Ojha who did the damage for us. Gilly effected two stumpings as well, and we were still right in it when I came on to bowl the second-to-last over.

They needed 27 off 12 balls and I went for 12 before Harmeet Singh took a brilliant catch running in from fine leg to dismiss Vinay Kumar off my last ball.

RP Singh bowled a brilliant over at the death and the crowd went nuts when he kept them to just 8 runs to seal Deccan’s first-ever IPL win. They were great scenes and there was a lot of emotion as the rest of the team charged the field from the dugout. I was there with a core of Aussies, but I really think every player appreciated how everyone had pulled together as a team.

Despite that success it probably wasn’t until I got to India for my second season that I realised how truly massive the IPL is over there. They hated that it was in South Africa in 2009 and loved having it back on home soil. They’re just such fanatical cricket fans, which is great, but it also meant I couldn’t walk down the street without stacks of people coming up to me and wanting a photo or an autograph or just to chat. That’s fine when it’s one or two people at a time, but it was a lot more than that when I did make the mistake of going outside the hotel on my own.

It was quite overwhelming for me because I never really got recognised as a cricket player back home. Even later in my career when I’d played in a few Ashes series, I could sit in a cafe with Cherie and I might only get one or two people give me a nod and say g’day. I like my personal space, but it seemed like everyone knew who I was over there. The organisers don’t actually like you going out on your own because you could get mobbed.

There were lots of little things I had to think about in India, which I had never had to consider before. Security was definitely one of them, but another was being quite vigilant about what you eat and where you eat it from. The hotels we stayed in generally catered for my Western tastes, but it’s almost inevitable that you’ll get crook guts from eating something not quite right at some point. I had that happen to me in my first IPL season and it’s definitely not pleasant. It’s certainly not conducive to fast bowling!

I’m not quite as bad as Warnie packing tins of baked beans to eat while I’m on tour, though. I did try a bit of the local food and let me tell you it was the hottest thing I’ve ever tasted. I don’t mind a little bit of heat, but this grub was positively volcanic!

Unfortunately, you also have to be very careful who you talk to about cricket. We were always warned about the strict anti-corruption rules they have over there, but it didn’t stop a few players getting into trouble during my time in the IPL. There are harsh bans as a strong deterrent to any sort of betting activity. I have absolutely no problem with that because the integrity of the game should never, ever be put in a position where it can be called into question.

I never had anyone approach me like that over there and if I had I would have reported it immediately, but you do have to be extremely careful. Betting on cricket is massive over there and you can get yourself in trouble just by inadvertently saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. If people want to have a chat then I’m happy to, but I’m always wary of anyone who’s too interested in particular aspects of the game.

Even in my second year at Deccan we couldn’t play at our home ground in Hyderabad because there were still security risks in that area. We had to use various other home grounds, which was a bit disappointing because I didn’t get that feeling of being the home team. Nagpur was one of the main ones.

The security concerns are very real over there, though, as we saw when two small bombs went off outside an IPL game in Bangalore late in the series. We made the semi-finals that year and were due to play at the same stadium a few days later, but they moved both semis to Mumbai because of the threat of further terrorist action.

It’s a shame there is that aspect to playing cricket in India, because it’s an amazing place.

We got knocked out in that semifinal by Chennai Super Kings. Then I went into the auction in 2011, where Kings XI Punjab picked me up because my two-year deal with the Chargers was finished.

Boof was still the coach at Deccan that year and he was keen to have me back, but the owners had also made it clear that they wanted to bring South African quick Dale Steyn in as well. The IPL auction is just like a yearling sale where they sell horses to the highest bidder—except it’s cricketers that go under the auctioneer’s hammer. Given his status in world cricket, Dale was a big-ticket item that year and it cost Deccan US$1.2 million to get him to the franchise.

He was the player who was auctioned just before me, so Deccan had done their dough and didn’t have the budget to bid for me too. Kings XI Punjab had finished last in 2010 and they brought in Adam Gilchrist to try to turn things around in 2011. Gilly and I had really enjoyed playing together at Deccan and he convinced the owners at Kings to bid for me even though I was coming back from the ankle fracture I suffered in the Boxing Day Test.

I’m glad he did because it was a whole new experience to play for Kings, who were based way up in the north of the country near the mountains. They split their home games between Mohali and Dharamsala, which is even further north and is about 1500 metres above sea level.

Dharamsala is the home of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile and one of the most stunning cricket grounds on the planet. It’s a very open ground with one covered grandstand, but the main feature is the snow-capped mountains you can see off in the distance from most points of the ground.

It’s quite a peaceful, spiritual place; it’s a bit of a mecca for yoga and Pilates types as well, which only adds to that vibe. I actually got to meet the Dalai Lama when I was still with Deccan when we played Kings there in 2010. It was a just a quick meet and greet, but he definitely has a presence about him.

It was an amazing place to play cricket. It’s an amazing place to have a beer at the end of a season too. We played Deccan there in the last game of the 2011 series and neither of us made the finals that year. Boof was still with Deccan at that stage, so Gilly, a few of the lads and I went a bit further up the hill to a good spot with a great view and a few bars.

I don’t know when we lost Boof, but Gilly and I watched the sun come up at the end of that session. We were drinking herbal tea by then and a herd of goats wandered past with the mountains on one side and the valley on the other—truly one of the most surreal moments of my life!

I don’t remember a lot of our conversation at that point in proceedings, but I daresay we’d probably taken the opportunity to convene a quick meeting of the ‘King Pair Club’ at some stage. Gilly was chairman of the club, having made his pair of golden ducks against India in Calcutta in 2001, and I joined him in the exclusive club after my efforts in the Adelaide Test in the Ashes series of 2010. We both reckon we were terribly harshly done by in the manner of our first dismissals, so we had a lot of common ground for discussion.

Boof came over to coach Kings from 2012, but we never quite recaptured the form that took us to the 2009 title. I played thirteen games for Kings in 2011, which was my biggest IPL season by five matches. I only managed eight in 2012 and then three in 2013, due to an Australian tour of the West Indies and an Achilles injury respectively.

It’s always about getting the result when I play cricket anywhere, but I found the IPL, in its timing on the calendar and length, also gave me an excellent opportunity to try a few different things with my bowling. Ultimately, that helped me develop as a bowler.

I met some great people and it was always a little surreal to be playing against fellow Australians in front of those heaving crowds in some exotic places.

India is a wonderful, if at times confronting, place and I enjoyed my time in the Indian Premier League immensely. Cricket tours aside, I’m not much of a world traveller and it’s probably a place I never would have got to experience if left to my own devices. I’m glad cricket allowed me to get to know the country a bit.

I was always keen to put my hand up to play Twenty20 cricket for Australia, but I don’t think the selectors ever really saw me as someone who had a future in that side. I played three Twenty20 games for Australia when I was enjoying a bit of an ODI rebirth in the first half of 2010, but that was pretty much it.

There are probably a couple of quite valid reasons for that. First, it’s a fairly young man’s game at international level and I think it’s a great format for some of our up-and-coming bowlers to showcase what they can do. Second, the Aussie selectors knew all too well what it took to get me on the park some days. With the amount of cricket that gets played these days it’s difficult for anyone to play regularly across all three forms of the game—let alone an old fella with a grumpy knee like me!

I initially had mixed feelings about the move away from the state team format in our domestic T20 competition. Playing for that state cap is important in all forms of the game, but I must admit I’ve been really impressed with how the Big Bash League has taken off since it came in with city-based teams.

There is a lot more chopping and changing of players between teams, so it does lose that element of pride in representing your state colours, but I think it fits nicely into the Australian cricket calendar.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to play a lot of cricket for my team, the Brisbane Heat, because of national duties or injury. But I was still thrilled when the boys managed to claim BBL02. I hope the concept keeps gaining momentum because I think it’s good for Australian cricket.