I DON’T REMEMBER the day after I retired as a first-class cricketer. I don’t remember how I felt when I woke up on the morning after I had ended it all. The struggle, the torture, the frustration, the hopes, the camaraderie, the fame, the joy of being a Test and first-class cricketer had come to an end at the age of thirty-two. Rahul Dravid scored 5,925 Test runs after his 32nd birthday, Michael Hussey 4,638. Whereas I, with no real fitness issues, walked away from cricket in the year 1998, with no idea what I was going to do next. I did have the financial security of a job with Air India, but I knew I was not going to do a job just for money – I had to be passionate about it.
The memories of what preceded my last match are sketchy at best. This much I can be certain of: I wasn’t sad. I had had enough. I was a Test discard. My last Test century had come five-and-a-half years ago. I had played only 15 Tests since that century against Zimbabwe. Fifteen Tests played across seven series, in which I averaged 28.09; each one played, in my mind at least, to save my career.
Now dropped from the India squad for close to two years, I knew making a comeback as an India batsman was never going to be easy. There were so many of them in good form, getting plenty of runs. You must do something more special than you did the first time around to convince selectors who have lost faith in you. During your first attempted comeback, the selectors do give you a chance to make it back to the team, but with every successive comeback attempt that interest wanes – the selectors prefer to move on.
As I’d mentioned earlier, the road to any comeback passes through Ranji Trophy and other forms of domestic cricket. To venture on to that road again was a scary thought. After playing ten years of international cricket, it was depressing to think of playing in front of empty stands day in and day out, in the hope that in one or two years I might just get another opportunity. Another opportunity to once again play to save my career.
I took great pride in being a public performer, a self-conscious one at that. I didn’t want to look awkward while playing. Getting out fending used to bother me more than getting out for a low score. I used to think what will people say. ‘What has become of this guy who was supposed to be the best Indian player against pace?’
The only thing worse was to have nobody discuss your game any more. Knowing that people were watching me play was a big high for me, and I’d get that only when I’d play at the highest level. The Wankhede Stadium used to get a few hundred – sometimes a thousand – spectators for Ranji Trophy games. They would be seated in the Garware Pavilion, right above our dressing rooms. So when you walked out to bat, you knew exactly how wanted and loved you were. I would always strain my ear to listen to the reception I got as I walked out, to hear the applause as they saw me coming out of the shadows, into the sun, and then in full view. After I’d been dropped during the home South Africa Tests in 1996 – during which I opened the innings in a desperate bid to stay in the side – I noticed I was not getting the same ovation as I used to get earlier. Was I not wanted as much any more? Maybe I imagined it, but I felt the crowd was not as excited to see me come out to bat as it was a few years back.
Without any hesitation, I decided it was time to pack up.
*
After that particular match, I called a press conference, announced I was going to retire after two more first-class games and came home to my sobbing wife, Madhavi. I had told her I was going to end it before I went for the press conference but when I came home it dawned on me that she too had been on the rollercoaster with me. When I returned, she hugged me and just broke down. Madhavi isn’t generally a visibly emotional person. But that day, her reaction was purely because I think she felt sorry for me. She knew how badly I wanted the good times to come back, how hard I had tried. But that never happened and here I was, finally giving up the fight.
Even though I didn’t discuss too much of my cricket with Madhavi, she had been witness to my frustrations over the last five years or so. I was exhausted trying to save my career, trying to swim against the tide, trying to stay afloat, waiting for the tide to turn so that I could at least enjoy being there. For almost four years, going into every game thinking it could be my last had finally taken its toll. Much later, I discussed that feeling with Rahul Dravid once. There were times in his tenure too when he had batted to save his career. He said it was a no-brainer: Playing to fulfil expectations was never as stressful as playing to save your career.
In those four years of struggle, I was frustrated I never got past that stage. This was an exasperation emanating from waiting for the big break that never came – I’d hoped it would be that one defining innings post the disastrous 1991-92 tour of Australia that would propel me back into the form and place I was in before.
I did have my share of moments full of false dawns and hopes. I scored a hundred against Zimbabwe at Harare in 1992 and scored some useful innings in ODIs, but a performance that would get my self-belief sky high never came. Every now and then I would get to a middling score and get exhausted and get out, only to earn me another chance and some more torture of playing to salvage my career.
Which is why, in 1996, I went to the extent of volunteering to open the innings with Nayan Mongia against South Africa in Ahmedabad. I scored 34 and 5, once again failing to build on a start. I was dropped from the playing eleven for the next Test, which we lost, and then from the squad altogether. That’s when I first started thinking of retirement, although unlikely scenarios delayed it.
I spoke to Raju Kulkarni, Mumbai fast bowler who played three Tests for India. We’d grown up together and were quite close. He was honest in his response. He said it was not a bad decision. That a close confidant saw merit in my thoughts as opposed to doing the routine thing of motivating me to stay on made me look at it more seriously.
When I told Mumbai coach Balwinder Sandhu of my intentions, he said national selector Shivlal Yadav had told him they had taken note of my captaincy results with Mumbai, and were thinking of bringing me back, this time as India captain, at a time when India were going through a leadership crisis. Now that I look back, I know it would have been a highly controversial – nigh impossible – move but that air of expectation made me wait for a couple of India selections.
I used to also share my thoughts with Ravi Shastri, a senior I have a lot of respect for. At the time, he asked me not to retire because he had caught wind of Lalit Modi’s idea of a big inter-city league – that was going to bring a financial windfall to players like me.
But I had already made up my mind – I was not going to change it for the lure of money. I never became a cricketer for the money; it was for the fame, remember?
Additionally, I could not stand the thought of keeping a youngster out when I wasn’t enjoying playing Ranji Trophy cricket in the first place. First-class cricket can be quite depressing if you don’t have an aim. Nobody cares, to be honest, and there’s no atmosphere at the ground. Sachin Tendulkar, for example, enjoyed that life of being a cricketer, of just hitting balls, being with the team members, in the dressing room and things like that. I, however, could not imagine myself going through that grind.
During that time, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid made their debuts – both noteworthy – in England. I hoped against hope for a while but I just didn’t have that will to keep playing. I used to enjoy my time, being with the players because there was less pressure playing Ranji Trophy. That also meant, in a twisted way, that I enjoyed it less. In my last Ranji Trophy game, against Odisha, I just went out thinking I must get a hundred in my last appearance and I got it.
Once you’ve played a fair amount of international cricket as a batsman, you can get runs at the Ranji level quite comfortably. To me too, domestic cricket was not a challenge any more. If I, at the age of thirty-two, with my experience of playing international cricket, got hundreds in Ranji Trophy, who would care? Dominating at the lower level is something I found quite embarrassing.
It was out of sheer fatigue from swimming against the tide for four or five years – swimming, swimming, swimming, just to stay afloat – that I said ‘enough is enough’ and gave myself two matches to enjoy and bid farewell: against Odisha at Wankhede and against the travelling Australians at Brabourne Stadium.
*
The only aspect I enjoyed during this dark phase in my career after being dropped from the India team was captaining Mumbai. Time would fly when you focused on other people. It gave me a lot of satisfaction to help young players develop. I enjoyed that part of my job.
This was my second stint as captain, mind you. I am not proud of the first one, around 1991. I basically behaved like a spoilt, young international star among mere Ranji players. I was riding a wave of great self-confidence that came from my success at the international level. Even Tendulkar, and on occasion Dilip Vengsarkar, played under me. I bordered on the arrogant in the way I conducted myself that season.
Players who played under me tell me now that I was like a tyrant. I would throw tantrums and loved showing my displeasure towards a fellow team-mate’s performance right in front of him and the rest of the team. That I was destroying their self-confidence in the process didn’t strike me.
Sometimes it was an act. You can’t be Mr Nice Guy all the time. Some players needed a little kick in the back side now and then, and they were certainly better for it after that. What I did to my good friend Raju Kulkarni once was certainly not a case of that.
The Mumbai team always had a fierce rivalry with Delhi. Our generation of players was consumed by it. I was no different. In a quarter-final game in the April heat of Delhi, we had secured a one-run first-innings lead to progress to the semi-final. We had then rubbed it in by scoring 719 runs in the second innings in 170.5 overs. I wasn’t done yet. I wanted to inflict more damage. So, on an inconsequential final evening, when we had about 50 overs to bowl, I wanted my seamers to go out there, bowl fast and bounce their batsmen out of sight.
There was a general feeling then, largely fuelled by our seniors before us, that the Delhi boys didn’t fancy fast bowling. I got my team together and told them of my intentions. Kulkarni, our lead fast bowler, senior to me in age and cricketing experience, protested and said it was a stupid idea. He suggested that we should take it easy and not exert ourselves too much because we had a semi-final to play in four days’ time.
I looked at this as Kulkarni looking forward to a nice last session of putting his legs up and enjoying the DDCA hospitality. I blew my top when I heard that, and lashed out at him, telling him in no uncertain terms what I thought of that attitude. I told him if he was not on board with my plans he could jolly well stay inside, and that I was going to hold that against him.
I could see that the players froze seeing me lose it at a senior player. I thought Kulkarni deserved what he got. I even thought I’d sent a strong message to the rest of the team. I was told later that Naren Tamhane, former India keeper and the national selector at the time, an extremely likeable and sweet person, had entered the dressing room when I was in the act. Seeing me in that kind of mood, he quietly fled.
But I remember that day as the day Sachin Tendulkar won my heart. With Kulkarni not on the field, Tendulkar put his hand up and took it upon himself to intimidate the batsmen. This slip of a boy, just over five-feet tall, bowled six bouncers an over at times. He even hit Bantoo Singh, a Delhi top-order batsman, on the nose. There was blood all over the place. I remember feeling no remorse at the time.
In hindsight, it just feels so wrong, but this was a cocky twenty-five-year-old India cricket star at the top of his game. Nor is this kind of behaviour uncommon in sports. That is why I believe the captain of a team should never be the ultimate authority in a team hierarchy, and surely not of a state’s or a nation’s cricket.
The captain is too young to know what’s best for the game. He is immature. He may know and have the skills to win matches, but doesn’t always set the right examples. More importantly he doesn’t have a long-term vision for the game. Players and captains aren’t the people who should be deciding that. Take inputs from them for sure, but it has got to be older, more mature men to decide what’s best for the game.
In my second stint as Mumbai captain, although I was also fighting for my India career, I used this behaviour of mine more judiciously. Now if I lost my cool, it was really an act, to motivate players, to pull them out of flux, all the while making sure I didn’t demoralize them. We won the Ranji Trophy, beating Delhi in the first day–night first-class game in India, in Gwalior. We then went on to beat a strong Rest of India side, which included the likes of Navjot Sidhu, V.V.S. Laxman and Anil Kumble.
I would like to believe that I did a pretty good job captaining Mumbai during my second stint. I helped them win the titles but the greatest satisfaction I got was when I could make a difference to the life of young cricketers who had the same big dreams in their eyes which I too had once.
That’s why I cherish the team meeting before my last Ranji match. Coach Sandhu gathered the whole Mumbai team in the Wankhede dressing room. Tendulkar was there too. They all spoke about how it was to play with me and what they felt the future held in store for me. It was quite amazing that Sandhu foresaw a future in commentary for me and the delicate issues that were likely to crop up. His benefit game was televised by TWI (Trans World International) and I had volunteered to commentate.
I remember Ballu-ji’s words: ‘Boys, Sanjay has now retired and in all likelihood will become a commentator, which means he will make public opinions about you, which will include criticism too. It’s important that you accept that and look at a man who is only doing his job.’
How true Sandhu’s words turned out to be. As a commentator, I went on to realize that if you played the game honestly and never shirked from a challenge, you did have a moral right to talk as an expert on the game even if you hadn’t captained India or played in some 100-odd Test matches. That is why I never shy away from criticizing the greats of the game. I am sure they wonder how much cricket has Sanjay Manjrekar played himself to give him the right to criticize them, but I do it because it’s my job to give my opinion on a public performer; that’s what I get paid for. Anyone who refuses to do this is short-changing his employers and his audience. This is not a job where you make friends with your subject, but give the viewers and listeners your honest view of what’s going on out there, and at the same time remain immune to what the player may think of you. You are not catering to him.
After Sandhu spoke, Amol Muzumdar made a speech and gave me a handwritten letter, which I read later. One by one, all the team members spoke. The more honest ones told me how frightened they were of my temper. I thought to myself, ‘You guys are lucky, you should have seen me as captain in my first stint.’
All those boys were at an impressionable age as cricketers. I sensed that somewhere I had touched their lives quite significantly, and that came through in that gathering at the Wankhede dressing room. I felt pleased that I had made some impact on the lives of those wide-eyed young cricketers wanting to become big stars of the future.
Before my last first-class match, a week after that Wankhede game, I had an emotional moment with another senior cricketer, Ramakant Desai. He was the West Zone selector when I was dropped from the India side. I had just opened the innings despite my struggle against fast bowling and held my own in Ahmedabad, but I was dropped from the playing eleven for the next Test in Kolkata – this was the match where Mohammad Azharuddin hit Lance Klusener for five consecutive boundaries and scored the then-fastest century by an Indian. However, we lost that Test. Now heads had to roll, and I ended up paying the price even though I didn’t play that Test. I was dropped altogether from the squad for the next Test.
I was angry. I told Tendulkar I was going to confront Desai about this. I asked Tendulkar to be there for the confrontation because he was the India captain at the time. Desai had acquired a reputation for being a bit of a pushover in that selection committee. I needed to be convinced he had put up a good fight for me.
Tendulkar found this awkward because confrontation was never his style. Impish that he was, he for some reason found it all very amusing. So, when I cornered Desai in the Eden Gardens dressing room, Tendulkar covered his face because he didn’t want Desai to see him suppressing laughter. I asked Desai how he could have possibly dropped me. ‘What were your reasons? How did you try to convince the others to retain me? Did you try to convince them at all?’
Poor Desai had no answer. This was not me being a bully but I was hoping I could have a dialogue with Desai and get some clarity because we felt quite close and friendly with him, despite the age gap.
Anyway, after one of my final games against the visiting Australians I found him standing just outside the dressing room of the CCI. I was playing for Mumbai.
He had stayed distant from me after my Eden Gardens confrontation, but seeing him there after so many days, my heart went out for him. I walked up to him and hugged him.
The poor man broke down into tears. He was shaking in my arms when I held him close. I am glad that I believe in forgiveness and moving on. I don’t hold grudges against people. I just can’t, even if I tried.
At the Ranji level there is more camaraderie among players. It’s not as cut-throat as it is at the highest level. For some reason, I enjoyed playing state-level cricket more than Test matches at the highest level. We were more of a team while playing for Mumbai than for India. I might even have been wistful that night, but I knew I had two games left.
*
My last first-class match, thankfully, was more of a contest. Tendulkar was going to captain us in a tour match against a full-strength Australia side who were here for a Test series. Nowadays the hosts make sure the tourists don’t get the best of practice by giving them ordinary sides to warm up against, but back then the gamesmanship was slightly different. We were looking to crush their confidence even before they started the Tests. And this was now a match big enough to be telecast live on TV.
After the Australians declared at 305 for 8, I came out to bat at No. 3 at 10 for 1. I joined Amit Pagnis, a pugnacious left-hand batsman, small of stature and quick of feet. He was a typical Mumbai product, a khadoos batsman. We both played out the Australian seamers, and now it was the turn of the pre-eminent spinner in world cricket, Shane Warne, to bowl his first over of that tour.
Warne had come to India with a big reputation. He was a mega star in world cricket, gracing the Indian shores after having bamboozled the world with his big leg-spinners. That series was going to be his first big test against the best players of spin, the India batsmen. The crowd at CCI, a few thousand, sensed the enormity of the occasion. I could hear a buzz around the ground when the ball was tossed to Warne.
Until now I had felt no real need to tell Pagnis anything apart from the usual words of encouragement in between overs. When I saw Warne get ready to bowl, my India-cricketer pride kicked in, and I walked over to Pagnis and told him to be a bit aggressive against Warne. ‘Don’t give him too much respect because of who he is,’ I said.
Pagnis took my advice to heart so much that he just launched into Warne. Right from the first ball he faced, he began to hit Warne’s stock leg-breaks through cover for fours. He didn’t even bother keeping the ball down. He was only intent on hitting every ball that Warne bowled. When I had my chance against Warne, I, too, made sure that the tempo didn’t diminish.
We were well and truly nipping the big threat for India in the bud there at the CCI. The variations that the world seemed challenged to tackle, were being easily spotted by our Mumbai batsmen, and the attack on Warne in that innings remained relentless. Pagnis scored 50 off 60 balls. I got 39 off 59. Tendulkar scored a double-century at more than a run a ball. At the end of that innings, the world’s leading spinner’s figures read 16-1-111-0 against a Ranji side. We went on to win the match by an innings, and things never got better for Warne on that tour. I would like to think Mumbai had a little hand in that by not allowing Warne to settle down.
The champion cricketer that Warne was, he was still in pretty good spirits even after being mauled by mostly domestic state-level batsmen. He didn’t think of the experience as a big global star being humbled by some domestic cricketers. I will never forget that sight when he was walking back to the pavilion at the end of the innings, after all that punishment – he looked cheerful and had his arm around a young Mumbai batsman, chatting with him. It was Warne who was doing the listening.
It was evidence of a rare quality and Warne’s great strength: When someone got the better of him, he did not think less of himself. He was happy to compliment the victor on the day. His lavish praise of Tendulkar and acceptance that he came second-best in a contest that the whole world was watching show how secure he was as a cricketer. Not once did he make an excuse for his failures on that trip to India. We must not forget that he was still recovering from a shoulder operation, and maybe because of that he wasn’t quite at his best in that series.
I say this because I had played Warne at his best too, in the 1996 World Cup match at the Wankhede Stadium. When he bowled his leg-breaks in that game I saw a sight I had never seen before as a batsman. The ball came to me spinning viciously on its axis. I couldn’t even see the seam; I saw just the leather. He used to impart tremendous side spin on the ball. I had to develop a new instinct where my bat had to come down at least a couple of inches wider to cover for the extra spin that he imparted on the ball. I didn’t have to do this with any other spinner in my life.
Warne was a shadow of his former self in the CCI game. I still managed only a good start, and ran myself out, again, around the score of 40. As I walked back for what turned out to be the last time, having been run out for a middling score, it felt like a fitting conclusion. ‘Sanjay, well done, you have made the right decision,’ I told myself.
*
I don’t even remember my first day after retirement. I must have woken up late I think – I hated waking up early but I had to do it since the age of twelve – so it felt nice, for a change, to sleep in. I don’t remember much else.
There is no regret, nothing that I miss terribly from my playing days that makes me sad. Sure, there are a few things I miss, like travelling as a group, the banter, etc. But I don’t miss the cricket.
I am proud the one quality in me that I know my wife, Madhavi, values a lot – because she is quite indecisive – is my clarity of thought and confidence in making decisions, especially the big, life-altering ones. There was no self-doubt, no confusion or uncertainty. I was absolutely sure that the time was right to hang up my boots. A tougher individual might have weathered the storm at the time I chose to retire, and might even have gone on to play 75 or 100 Tests, but I guess I wasn’t such a person.
I believe big decisions have to be emotional decisions. Emotions dictate your state of mind, and the state of mind dictates your health, and nothing is more important in life than health.
Moreover, I could now go back to doing things that pleased me. Just the simple routines. Doing everything at a proper time. The clock rules my life. Dinner no later than 8.30 p.m., and not because I am hungry. When my mother was in hospital, days before she died, she did the same: She kept looking at the clock in that room to do her things, like she did all her life.
I never loved the game for the pure joy of hitting a ball. If cricket was not a popular sport in India, there was no chance I would have played it. It was my ticket to fame.
There were many individuals I’d come across who loved it much more than I did.
Ashish Parulekar, my close friend who broke his teeth when playing cricket in college, was one of those. Even now, whenever he gets the chance he plays cricket. He played club cricket for several years even when he was in his thirties, when he clearly didn’t have any hopes of playing at a higher level.
Sourav Ganguly, for example, just loved batting. Tendulkar – he simply enjoyed hitting the ball, getting an upper hand over the bowler. I, however, didn’t play for those reasons. I decided to get into commentary after retirement not only because it came naturally to me but also because it would keep me in the public eye. It’s something all former cricketers want, even if we don’t want to admit it.
It also takes care of the other need, especially for someone like me – I get to travel. I love being at home, but there’s got to be travel before and after it.
Many retired cricketers fade into oblivion. Don’t they miss the spotlight, or is it just me?
I don’t miss playing at all. I never understood the logic of people turning up to see a faded player in action when you can see current players in their prime.
I didn’t want to be one of those faded players in the spotlight. Whenever Ian Chappell runs into someone playing even after retirement, he asks, ‘Why did you retire then?’
I was a bit like Chappell. I was happy not to touch the bat again. I have a cement pitch at my farmhouse where my son Siddharth often used to call me out to play. I wouldn’t want to. I was quite happy sitting there and having a chat. I would prefer a quiet dinner, or just sit and have a stimulating conversation.
Cricket can be hard to get out of your system, though. A dear friend of mine, Somi Kohli, who makes Vampire cricket bats, used to make bats for me sometimes. At his factory, whenever he comes across a bat that he feels is just like the ones I used to play with, he promptly couriers it to me.
And I, retired for so many years now, keep telling him that I don’t play any more. He says he can’t help it when he sees a bat that reminds him of me.
Sometimes, when I pick up the bat and take my stance, it all comes back to me. I suddenly realize, ‘Shit, this completes me.’ It’s amazing. When I take the stance, that position in which I spent hundreds of hours, the bat, I tell Madhavi, feels like an extension of my body that was missing, like an arm, and now I have found it. I feel complete – a whole person again.
I must have loved the game a little after all.