|
Excerpts from the Interview as compiled by
B.V.Swagath on September 3, 2005
 Congratulations
for you and your HCA’s achievement in constructing the Visaka
International Uppal Stadium and hosting the two important first
class games (Duleep Trophy - South Zone Vs West Zone and
Pakistan Vs India A). So what’s next big thing with this stadium
now?
Thank You. Most likely we are going to get the India-South
Africa One Dayer and that would be in November. So we are hoping
that it would be the first one day international played at the
Visaka International Stadium.
But
there was a talk that this stadium would be hosting its 1st ODI
against Sri Lanka, what has happened to that?
Sri Lanka is playing 7 matches and as per rotation policy of the
venues we don’t come under that, most definitely we would be
getting the South Africa match.
What were the
challenges that HCA had faced while constructing this stadium?
Oh there were quite a few challenges that we had encountered
right from legal point of view because the land was allotted to
us by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh. Then thereafter
there was a court case pending from the lower court. In fact we
went from the lowest court to the highest court and till Supreme
Court we had gone for this case. Some how we had overcome all of
that and now the stadium is standing there at Uppal.
People all around the world want to
know what kind of wickets the Visaka International Stadium
offers. So what's your answer about this?
Well if it’s a One Dayer then the wicket would be batting
oriented wicket. We want good scores to come up because people
love to watch the big scoring matches in One Dayers. Whereas if
it’s a test match… that is once we are allotted the test status
we would give a sporting wicket with assistance to both the
batsmen and the bowlers.
You
have been a Test Cricketer, you have been a National Selector,
and you have been the Indian team Manager and a Cricket board
official. Of all these which has been the best role you have
enjoyed?
Well definitely I enjoyed my playing days, nothing
that can beat that. But I find that as an administrator, it is
much more difficult and you have to face different kinds of
things and challenges that you have to encounter. I find this
job more taxing.
Let's rewind back to almost 26 years back, on September 19th,
1979 you had made your Test Match debut against Australia at
Bangalore in the 2nd Test. You took 7 wickets in that match, do
you remember any special moments of that match now?
Yes I do remember that match very well because that
being my first test match of my career. In fact I would like to
thank the Late M.L.Jaisimha for guiding me during that period
because he was the National Selector then and was giving me lots
of tips during that test match. I just had to bowl accordingly
and that gave me the 7 wickets. Well I do remember my 1st wicket
which was that of the opening batsman Andrew Hilditch, who was
caught by substitute fielder Arun Lal at deep square leg.
Thereafter in the 2nd innings, I got Hilditch lbw and the
upcoming batsman in those days, Allan Border clean bowled. I do
remember M.L.Jaisimha walking up to me during Tea and telling me
to go round the stumps and bowl the arm ball. That’s how I got
Border; my arm ball had crashed onto the stumps in the gap
between his bat and pad.
Tell us more about that series, you had
a great time taking 24 wickets in the 5 tests you played.
See those days there wasn’t much of publicity given to the
cricket. Though myself and Kapil were the top wicket takers, I
mean if today had we done that we would have been taken some
where else. Those days even though someone took 24 wickets in a
series, it didn't mean much because the publicity and the
television coverage was just beginning then. Today the media is
so vibrant that for just one performance a player is taken right
on top and the moment you don’t do well they send you down.
Those days it wasn’t that vibrant atleast.
Harbhajan had taken 32 wickets, you
have taken 24...so does that mean that Aussies in general do
have this weakness against good off spinners?
Well if you have a look at the history of Australian Cricket
right from the days of Jim Laker to the days of Erapalli
Prasanna, Venkatraghavan and then to myself, Harbhajan or for
that matter even John Emburey, Aussies have struggled against
good off spinners. I mean may be it’s because they have had lots
of left handers in their teams and also they had this difficulty
of handling the incoming ball. If you see the history, yes off
spinners have always done well against Aussies.
After playing just 6 first class games,
you got a big break getting selected for the Indian Board
President’s XI against West Indies and 7 months later you had
played your 1st Test. What do you think about such stunning
progress in your career?
Basically as you said I got my big break playing for the Board’s
team against Alvin Kalicharan’s team. That was played at CCI,
Bombay. It so happened that I remember very clearly the captain
of the side was Parthasarthy Sharma and he wasn’t aware that I
was in the team as an off spinner. And in the 1st innings I
wasn’t given to bowl till tea time. During the Tea Break, one of
the selectors, Rajsingh Durganpur walked upto him and he said
that he was also having an off spinner in the side and you can
try him as well. Then thereafter 3 wickets were remaining and I
was finally given the ball and I took 2 out of the 3 wickets. In
the 2nd innings, I was introduced into the attack as the 1st
change bowler and thereby I got six wickets. (Laughs) So that’s
how I remember and had it not been for Rajsingh reminding
Parthasarthy Sharma, I wouldn’t have played for India.
If we have a closer look at your
career, prior to getting into the Board's team or the Indian
team, you hardly played 5-6 first class games and you just
picked up 17 wickets. So what was the performance of yours that
got you into both the sides?
Before getting into the Indian team, I was also given an
opportunity to play for South Zone against Australia at the Lal
Bahadur Stadium here in Hyderabad and I got couple of wickets in
that game. Not only my performances at that time but may be the
selectors thought they saw some talent in me. It could also be
the way I was bowling and may be with Prasanna and
Venkatraghavan both in their decline, they might have seen
something in me and then I got the break.
Talk us through about Shivlal Yadav’s
role in one of the greatest tests ever played – the tied test at
Madras, 1986.
That is one of the games which you can never forget till you
die. I remember I had played a crucial role in the outcome of
the game. The first four days of that test were dull and boring,
I mean it was typical Madras heat and at the same time plenty of
runs were being scored. It so happened that Allan Border gave us
all a surprise by declaring on the 5th day. He gave us 348 runs
in about 330 minutes in a day’s play and we all just sat over it
and decided to have a shot at the target. And it so happened
that for every 50 runs we scored, we lost a wicket, but the
chase continued. When I walked in, we had 13 runs to win and Ray
Bright and Greg Matthews were bowling. Ravi Shastri walked upto
me and said if you want to take a chance take it in this over
from Bright now. I remember I was nervous like hell and didn’t
exactly know what to do at that point of time. I just blocked
the 1st ball and it just occurred to me before the 2nd ball, it
was preplanned. I mean it was a premeditated shot and I took a
chance, went down the track and completed the hoik and luckily I
connected. You wouldn’t believe it Allan Border was right down
my neck standing at silly point and was shouting “catch it…catch
it…catch it”. For a moment I thought Greg Ritchie would take the
catch but fortunately Ritchie couldn’t jump up and catch it, the
ball went over the ropes and into the pavilion for a six. That
was a very exciting moment for me, my whole body was shaking,
Ravi walked towards me and said great shot, now let’s
concentrate on taking singles and finish off the match. Ray
Bright then got me out bowled behind my legs. I went for a sweep
shot and the ball hit my pads and then hit the back of the bat
and then went onto hit the stumps. Then Maninder walked into the
middle with 4 more runs to win. Then the equation became 1 run
after Ravi had picked up a couple and a single and that left
Mani with 1 run and you know what happened then, Mani was out
lbw by Greg Matthews and rest is history. The final outcome was
great for the game of cricket because had it been just another
victory, people wouldn't have remembered about it and we
wouldn’t have been talking about it today even after 18 years.
So do you reckon that the six you hit
was a decisive blow in that Test Match?
Well if you see the scorecard it looks to be decisive and
ironically that was the only sixer I hit in my career.
The famous Melbourne Test in 1981,
where India had won you had fractured your toe but you continued
to bat and make a useful contribution. Could you talk about that
innings?
Before my injury we played a Test Match at Adelaide and before
that Indian team had lost a 4 day match against South Australia.
I was batting with Dilip Doshi and I was shielding him by taking
most of the strike. I got out to the leg spinner Peter Sleep and
after that I got lot of lecture from Sunil Gavaskar and he fired
at me saying that my approach was totally unprofessional and I
had no business in playing such a kind of shot and throw my
wicket at that stage. This incident got stuck in my mind. In the
Adelaide Test, I was sent in as the night watchman in the 1st
innings and I had a partnership with Chetan Chauhan. I managed
to bat for an hour and got something like 15 runs. Then in the
2nd Test we were struggling at 128/8 and were on the brink of
the defeat but myself and Karsan Ghavri batted all the mandatory
overs and saved the Test match. In the Melbourne test, I was
badly injured, I knew that the injury was very serious but with
G.R.Vishwanath almost reaching his hundred I didn’t want to
leave the field with just the last man Dilip Doshi to come. I
somehow managed to bat and Vishy got his century and got out.
After Doshi had come and got out and I remained not out on 20.
That is what was the Gavaskar effect on me, after he had fired
me up few days back to this innings I had decided that any stage
I wouldn’t throw away my wicket and just hang in there and get
as many runs as possible.
The Gymkhana grounds is reckoned to
have the bounciest pitches in the country, was there any
intentional efforts on HCA’s part to get the track bouncy?
Basically we are trying out, we are experimenting with the
tracks. We want our boys to develop their game by playing on
different kinds of tracks. Gymkhana is a bouncy track but we
have other tracks which have even bounce and where you can play
your strokes. But now we have changed the Gymkhana track also by
not leaving too much of grass on the wicket. We want to see if
we can still have the bounce after removing the grass and
encourage strokeplay because ultimately the batters have to get
the runs, then only the game becomes attractive.
Tell us more about that series, you had
a great time taking 24 wickets in the 5 tests you played.
See those days there wasn’t much of publicity given to the
cricket. Though myself and Kapil were the top wicket takers, I
mean if today had we done that we would have been taken some
where else. Those days even though someone took 24 wickets in a
series, it didn't mean much because the publicity and the
television coverage was just beginning then. Today the media is
so vibrant that for just one performance a player is taken right
on top and the moment you don’t do well they send you down.
Those days it wasn’t that vibrant atleast.
Harbhajan had taken 32 wickets, you
have taken 24...so does that mean that Aussies in general do
have this weakness against good off spinners?
Well if you have a look at the history of Australian Cricket
right from the days of Jim Laker to the days of Erapalli
Prasanna, Venkatraghavan and then to myself, Harbhajan or for
that matter even John Emburey, Aussies have struggled against
good off spinners. I mean may be it’s because they have had lots
of left handers in their teams and also they had this difficulty
of handling the incoming ball. If you see the history, yes off
spinners have always done well against Aussies.
After playing just 6 first class games,
you got a big break getting selected for the Indian Board
President’s XI against West Indies and 7 months later you had
played your 1st Test. What do you think about such stunning
progress in your career?
Basically as you said I got my big break playing for the Board’s
team against Alvin Kalicharan’s team. That was played at CCI,
Bombay. It so happened that I remember very clearly the captain
of the side was Parthasarthy Sharma and he wasn’t aware that I
was in the team as an off spinner. And in the 1st innings I
wasn’t given to bowl till tea time. During the Tea Break, one of
the selectors, Rajsingh Durganpur walked upto him and he said
that he was also having an off spinner in the side and you can
try him as well. Then thereafter 3 wickets were remaining and I
was finally given the ball and I took 2 out of the 3 wickets. In
the 2nd innings, I was introduced into the attack as the 1st
change bowler and thereby I got six wickets. (Laughs) So that’s
how I remember and had it not been for Rajsingh reminding
Parthasarthy Sharma, I wouldn’t have played for India.
If we have a closer look at your
career, prior to getting into the Board's team or the Indian
team, you hardly played 5-6 first class games and you just
picked up 17 wickets. So what was the performance of yours that
got you into both the sides?
Before getting into the Indian team, I was also given an
opportunity to play for South Zone against Australia at the Lal
Bahadur Stadium here in Hyderabad and I got couple of wickets in
that game. Not only my performances at that time but may be the
selectors thought they saw some talent in me. It could also be
the way I was bowling and may be with Prasanna and
Venkatraghavan both in their decline, they might have seen
something in me and then I got the break.
Talk us through about Shivlal Yadav’s
role in one of the greatest tests ever played – the tied test at
Madras, 1986.
That is one of the games which you can never forget till you
die. I remember I had played a crucial role in the outcome of
the game. The first four days of that test were dull and boring,
I mean it was typical Madras heat and at the same time plenty of
runs were being scored. It so happened that Allan Border gave us
all a surprise by declaring on the 5th day. He gave us 348 runs
in about 330 minutes in a day’s play and we all just sat over it
and decided to have a shot at the target. And it so happened
that for every 50 runs we scored, we lost a wicket, but the
chase continued. When I walked in, we had 13 runs to win and Ray
Bright and Greg Matthews were bowling. Ravi Shastri walked upto
me and said if you want to take a chance take it in this over
from Bright now. I remember I was nervous like hell and didn’t
exactly know what to do at that point of time. I just blocked
the 1st ball and it just occurred to me before the 2nd ball, it
was preplanned. I mean it was a premeditated shot and I took a
chance, went down the track and completed the hoik and luckily I
connected. You wouldn’t believe it Allan Border was right down
my neck standing at silly point and was shouting “catch it…catch
it…catch it”. For a moment I thought Greg Ritchie would take the
catch but fortunately Ritchie couldn’t jump up and catch it, the
ball went over the ropes and into the pavilion for a six. That
was a very exciting moment for me, my whole body was shaking,
Ravi walked towards me and said great shot, now let’s
concentrate on taking singles and finish off the match. Ray
Bright then got me out bowled behind my legs. I went for a sweep
shot and the ball hit my pads and then hit the back of the bat
and then went onto hit the stumps. Then Maninder walked into the
middle with 4 more runs to win. Then the equation became 1 run
after Ravi had picked up a couple and a single and that left
Mani with 1 run and you know what happened then, Mani was out
lbw by Greg Matthews and rest is history. The final outcome was
great for the game of cricket because had it been just another
victory, people wouldn't have remembered about it and we
wouldn’t have been talking about it today even after 18 years.
So do you reckon that the six you hit
was a decisive blow in that Test Match?
Well if you see the scorecard it looks to be decisive and
ironically that was the only sixer I hit in my career.
The famous Melbourne Test in 1981,
where India had won you had fractured your toe but you continued
to bat and make a useful contribution. Could you talk about that
innings?
Before my injury we played a Test Match at Adelaide and before
that Indian team had lost a 4 day match against South Australia.
I was batting with Dilip Doshi and I was shielding him by taking
most of the strike. I got out to the leg spinner Peter Sleep and
after that I got lot of lecture from Sunil Gavaskar and he fired
at me saying that my approach was totally unprofessional and I
had no business in playing such a kind of shot and throw my
wicket at that stage. This incident got stuck in my mind. In the
Adelaide Test, I was sent in as the night watchman in the 1st
innings and I had a partnership with Chetan Chauhan. I managed
to bat for an hour and got something like 15 runs. Then in the
2nd Test we were struggling at 128/8 and were on the brink of
the defeat but myself and Karsan Ghavri batted all the mandatory
overs and saved the Test match. In the Melbourne test, I was
badly injured, I knew that the injury was very serious but with
G.R.Vishwanath almost reaching his hundred I didn’t want to
leave the field with just the last man Dilip Doshi to come. I
somehow managed to bat and Vishy got his century and got out.
After Doshi had come and got out and I remained not out on 20.
That is what was the Gavaskar effect on me, after he had fired
me up few days back to this innings I had decided that any stage
I wouldn’t throw away my wicket and just hang in there and get
as many runs as possible.
The Gymkhana grounds is reckoned to
have the bounciest pitches in the country, was there any
intentional efforts on HCA’s part to get the track bouncy?
Basically we are trying out, we are experimenting with the
tracks. We want our boys to develop their game by playing on
different kinds of tracks. Gymkhana is a bouncy track but we
have other tracks which have even bounce and where you can play
your strokes. But now we have changed the Gymkhana track also by
not leaving too much of grass on the wicket. We want to see if
we can still have the bounce after removing the grass and
encourage strokeplay because ultimately the batters have to get
the runs, then only the game becomes attractive.
Let’s talk about the Hyderabad Ranji team; if we have a look at
the recent scorecards, Hyderabad team has struggled to bat for
more than one day. Why is it so and do you think the batting
needs to improve by a long way?
As I said before, Gymkhana wicket has been seamer friendly and
all of our Ranji matches last year have been at the Gymkhana
except the Semis. Not many teams have come up with good scores
last year here and even the big teams have struggled to put the
runs on the board. We had experimented last year with the wicket
and now after changing the wicket, we hope that our boys would
build the big innings. That is why we have our 3-days league
cricket for the first division teams at different wickets like
Gymkhana, Uppal and others. Strokeplay is good but at the same
time strokeplay with common sense is required and we want the
boys to bat for long time. At the same time, I am happy to
inform everybody that we had won the U22 tournament, our U19
boys did well and lost in the finals, U17 boys lost in the
Quarter finals. I mean these are all All India tournaments and
shows that we have plenty of talent available in Hyderabad and
given proper chances, I am sure we would have few players
representing the country in the future.
We youngsters haven't watched you much
on the television, so could you describe Shivlal Yadav - the Off
Spinner?
I was not a bowler who would bowl fast in the air, I relied on
my flight and had big turn. As I grew older I learnt the
importance of flight and that having big turn wasn’t the only
thing that’s required. Like Prasanna I believed that flight was
the most important weapon for a spinner.
Okay one last question, what do you
think about the progress of your son Arjun Yadav in his
cricketing career?
I would have been happy had he gone little higher in the level
he’s playing at the moment now. The way he had shown the promise
during his U19 days, he hasn’t met the expectations at this
level. Unfortunately he has been having some injuries, like last
year he had a severe back injury, he broke his finger and all
this was in the middle of the season. So he had his setbacks.
Let’s see if he can comeback from them and perform because
ultimately if you want to play the higher grade of cricket, you
got to attract the selectors through your performances and
there’s no other substitute for that.
|
