'We saw the signs at the nets'

Sourav Ganguly was solid from the start, focused on the job at hand. He handled the short balls well and was middling the ball straightaway. And that was at the nets on Tuesday, 48 hours before he went on to do the same thing out in the middle.

I know because I bowled to him that day, and saw evidence of what was to follow.

On Tuesday, a couple of friends and I went to the nets of Sedgars Park, Potchefstroom after being asked by the local coach to bowl to the Indian cricket team. The Indians arrived at round about 10 am, all except Ganguly, who was still on his way from the airport in Johannesburg.

Ganguly arrived around an hour later. He greeted the coach and his fellow team-mates, went through his warm-ups and then put on his gear for batting. I had the honour of speaking with him and he told me that he'd come straight from the airport, where he'd landed about two hours earlier.

I saw he had just received brand new gear from his sponsor, Sunridges.He was very quiet and was visibly tired - very tired - probably due to jetlag. At the same time, he was completely focussed on what he was there to do - practice.

The nets were prepared to be quite bouncy, on the request of the Indian management. We asked India's assistant coach if it was okay to bowl a couple of bouncers, to which the reply was clear: "They've got helmets and bats, they should expect bouncers during this tour. Please do bowl bouncers."

The very next ball was Ganguly's first; it was a nice short one, he had to duck underneath and was quite surprised by the bounce. He handled it well, though, and what struck me was how focused he was, despite being straight off the plane.

We continued bowling till about noon, when we were told that the net-practice was over. It had been a pretty amazing experience; most of us were meeting our cricketing heroes and it was a privilege bowling at them or throwing them some balls. Dravid, Tendulkar and Sehwag are legends the world over and are as big here in South Africa as anywhere else.

Even the new faces have star status here. Sreesanth, for example, was very friendly and he told me an interesting fact about him that I didn't know: He was a legspinner until he played Under-19. Only after that the speedster started his adventure into the world of fast-bowling.