'I'm really glad I was left out of the side'
One of India's brightest young talents looks back on what he regards as the key formative experience of his career, how he got his act together, and the West Indies tour

After scoring 4 on Test debut: "It is frustrating when you prepare well and don't score runs" • Associated Press
It's been a great learning experience for me. I didn't see any Test matches before this with the team. Coming in straight away from the one-dayers and the IPL, there was only a two-day gap, and I had only one practice session with the team, and straightaway into Test cricket. That makes a big difference, because the more you stay in the team - on the sidelines - and the more you see the senior players play and perform in different situations, you get a fair idea of Test cricket.
When I came in as a youngster, initially when I started to play one-dayers I didn't think that I had to make such an image where people are always expecting me to score runs whenever I come out to bat. My only aim was to go out there, play every match and try to do the best I can. It is still the same. People's reactions change with time, because they expect a lot from you, and when you don't do well they get disappointed, and they'll say all sorts of things. And that is because they want you to do well. That is because they see that you can be a future batsman for India.
If in one innings you get out to a short ball, people start thinking that you can't play it well. I don't think in the last year of international cricket I have been bounced out in any one-day match. If some bowler is bowling quick, over 90mph, then even the best batsmen can be troubled by a good spell. International cricket is all about being tested. It is about taking it in a positive way. The bowler is also a pedigreed one, and he can bowl a good short-pitched spell and get the better of you. [Fidel Edwards] was bowling really well. The odd ball you tend to misjudge. But you can see that happening to the best of batsmen as well. You don't get every short ball to hit; they leave a lot, while you might get a top edge and get a boundary. I am not worried about playing the short ball, because I know I have a very good mindset when I go out to bat.
You can say that. I wasn't sure of the exact mindset you should have when you go into a Test match. So I probably became too defensive when I played my first Test match. Short balls in one-day cricket, I have never thought of just defending. Once you start thinking about leaving and defending the short ball, that's when you get into trouble. If you are looking to play the short ball and looking to score off it, then you can leave it really well. Which I did in the other two [one-day] games, because my intent was to get runs off it, and I played the short ball really well.
I was really disappointed. The way I got out in a couple of innings - caught down the leg side, that really gets to you. But I don't want to be too hard on myself. It's just a matter of things going my way. I know I am batting well. Even in this innings [in Dominica] I got to 30 and was caught down the leg side. One innings can turn things around for you. I'm working really hard for that, but I don't want to be over-desperate.
"It was a personal decision for me to stand and say that cricket is all I have in life, there's nothing I need to do other than cricket. I didn't want people to say that he was one of those players who had talent and could have played for India"
I spoke to all the seniors in the team. You said that I played over 50 ODIs and won the World Cup, but my aim when I started playing was to play Test cricket. It didn't get bigger than that for me. This was the biggest moment for me. I was nervous, for sure, but I took the confidence of having done well in international cricket with me.
As a young player, when you have been doing well consistently for a long period of time, complacency can creep in. I am not saying it has, but you don't even realise when it happens. Small things you start ignoring - like, "I can just miss this practice session today, it's optional." You might have been hitting balls in optional practice sessions for one and a half years before that, but suddenly you decide to give them a miss. I won't say it has happened to me. Because every one-day game that I have played for India, I am always motivated to do well. I bat at No. 3, and my job is to take the team through. That has helped me a long way in getting mature as well. It is right that this kind of thing happened, then you don't get complacent or casual. If I had done well in this series then I would have gone back, even if I wasn't selected for England series, I would have been sitting at home just being relaxed.
Lot of people just saw whatever I was doing wrong. No one really considered the fact that I had lost someone really important in my life. It was really difficult for me to concentrate on what was going on. I was only 17 or 18 then, and as a young kid you need your father to be guiding you and motivating you. But I lost him and it was a tragic moment for me and my family.
No, not at all. Never at any point did I feel like missing a training session. I was very keen on improving as a cricketer and as an international player. I was very new and didn't know how to take singles in the first series I played. And Gary [Kirsten] and I discussed that initially and he told me how important it was to take singles in international cricket.
To a certain extent, I didn't let all those things go to my family. It was a huge tragedy they were dealing with for a long period of time. I didn't want my mother to find out. My brother and my coach knew, so they tried to help me. They kept telling me that something has to be wrong somewhere. But I didn't accept it, my mind was so into what was going on. I didn't let my mom know about all that. I didn't want her to feel bad about one more thing. I had just played for India. At the end of the day, it was my decision to step up and say, "I am going wrong, I need to correct myself and go the right way."
I spent twice as much time on the field. I didn't feel like hanging out with friends or going for a party for one and a half years. And never on an evening did I feel like I have had enough of hard work and I need to party, I deserve one night with my friends. For one and a half years straight, I was just spending time working in the gym or in the field, practising. I would come back and lie down, thinking that I should get 10 hours of sleep, I should get proper sleep for my body. I taught myself to think that way - just love each and every minute on the field. And I started to enjoy my batting much more and felt very confident about myself. It was all about cutting out all the other distractions I had and just focusing on cricket full time. My only aim was to get back into the team.
I was part of the one-day series against England in late 2008. After that I was left out of the team, and I really didn't understand why. Probably because of my conduct off the field. Then I realised how big an impact it had on the way people saw me. "He's arrogant, a brash kid, and just says anything that comes to his mind." There were selections for the New Zealand tour for one-dayers and I had done well in the first series I played. I was driving home and a reporter told me I was not in the squad. I was in total shock. I stopped the car, and I couldn't believe it. That was when I started thinking, "This is a major issue and I need to look into it."
My brother, my family, my coach - all these people helped me a lot. Whatever I was doing, they motivated me.
It is difficult as a youngster. It was a really strong decision on my part. I could easily still have hung out with my friends, partied and compromised on my training, not getting proper sleep and just being lazy in the practice sessions. It was a hard decision but it paid off in a much bigger and better way. You know, the joy of doing well as a batsman for your country is much more than that little joy of going for a party and enjoying music. It is a completely different high, and I get high by performances. That's what I enjoy now. Every now and then, now that you know what you are doing, it's okay to hang out with friends. Even now if I have to cut off all those things, I will, for six months straight.
I should have taken all that confidence into the first Test, and I should have gone in with the same approach, not thinking of this as a big switch and [going] over-defensive like I did, not being myself. I put myself under pressure by my own thinking, not by them bowling too well or the match scenario. As I said, I am a mindset player, so once I put even a little bit of doubt in my mind, whether I should play or leave that ball, I stop feeling comfortable.
"My mom tells me not to swear on the field. And obviously I get really embarrassed whenever she asks me. I don't tell her anything; I just ask her to give me food at that point"
In one-day cricket my only aim is to score. When I have that mindset, I can leave bouncers at any speed. I got mixed up; the thinking of being defensive pulled me back. I was still pretty confused about whether I should hook or leave when I went back. My positive intent wanted me to score, but that feeling of having to face 150 balls for my 30-40 runs was pulling me back. That was one mistake I made. Now as I said, I am feeling much more confident. Just like I play in domestic cricket, I play to my strengths, defend well and hit the boundary balls for four. That's my strength. In 100 runs I might have 15 or 16 fours, which is my strength. In Test cricket, probably I have to be slightly more patient and wait for the boundary balls.
I had a point to prove in the IPL. All these distractions and temptations you talk about… you cannot just sit in your room at the end of the match and focus on the next match. It's all about team bonding and enjoying as a team after you win. And being focused all the time. You don't have to get complacent.
Wherever I play and whatever format I play, I want people to say that he deserves his place. I feel much more confident when I have earned my place. That's what motivated me to do really well in the one-dayers, and probably because of that and how well I have done in the last one year, it has changed the thinking of my team-mates towards me - the way they expect performances from me now, and I expect from me too now. You want to establish yourself. You want to be spoken of as someone the opposition needs to get out rather than say that we'll just bowl good areas and get him out.
Yeah, I enjoy captaincy and I keep learning on the field from whatever Mahi bhai does. He is a great captain, of course. Sometimes you don't understand his field placements, but it ends up being successful because he has put some thought behind that. I analyse the reason - if the game is going slow, what kind of field he sets, and what he does when we are attacking. He plays with the batsman's mind, and I learn a lot from what he does on the field. I enjoy captaincy. I captained Under-19, IPL and Ranji Trophy as well. I keep thinking of new ways of confusing the batsman, playing with his mind. I am a batsman myself. I know when an opposition captain is trying to play with my mind - like setting a field for a bouncer and getting his bowler to bowl full outside the off stump.
I wasn't very good in academics, but I could have been if I could have studied well. I was a smart kid. I obviously didn't have the time, as I was doing Under-19 tours. All my first six Under-19 tours were abroad, so I was always fond of English. I used to love the subject, and I used to love interacting with the teachers and having discussions with them about what was happening in class. Probably I picked it up from there.
When you start doing well and your team-mates start appreciating you, they start accepting you for whatever you do in the dressing room. As a youngster you are really careful and nervous doing stuff around seniors, but once they get comfortable with you, you know when they accept you as someone they look at as a regular in the team. I started feeling that way after the New Zealand series. I started to feel a part of the team, and that was majorly because I was playing No. 3. That made me feel a bigger part of the team. The fact that I am batting at No. 3 in that line-up, it means they trust me and believe in me to take the team through. And they see me as a responsible person, and that gave me a lot of confidence. I always thank Gary and Mahi bhai for giving me that chance at No. 3. It is a big risk, giving a youngster a chance there consistently, because you never know how it's going to pay off.
He told me during the second Test: "You have one more match, just learn as much as you can from these matches and go home." He said, "The more you learn, the more improved a player you will come back as when you play Tests again." He told me not to get too disappointed or too low with yourself [and do things like] sit alone and not with everyone else. Go home with all the learning and feel good about the taste of Test cricket that you have gotten here. Some people score centuries on debut, some people don't.
Never. I just take it one match at a time. When you go to play a big series, if you keep thinking, "These are the kind of bowlers I am going to face and I have these many innings to face those spells," that confuses your mind a lot more. Rather than going into every match with a fresh mind and going through with it and moving onto the next one. I don't set future goals for myself - not in life nor in cricket. I just live everything as it comes, and it probably helps me be more relaxed and in a better frame of mind to perform.
One thing I really want to achieve is that people should look at me as a responsible Indian batsman in the future. Or someone who always helped the team through and did well in difficult situations. As a youngster I used to watch all these matches and whenever India used to be in trouble, I used to imagine myself going in there and saving the day. And I feel good even if I think about it in the future. Like in a Test match there is a difficult situation, say 60 for 6, and we are chasing a total and I end up doing it with tailenders. I take a lot of motivation from Laxman bhai, the way he has taken the team from a lot of dire situations to victory.
I have learnt that when you achieve something, it's to be happy about. I don't have to be angry. One innings where I scored a century and I was really aggressive was against Australia at Vizag. That game was after that Dambulla patch. I knew I was going to be left out if I didn't score in another two-three games, and people would start criticising me for not being able to play on fast wickets. I was really pumped up and I ended up scoring a hundred. So I couldn't stop myself. After that, whenever I have scored a hundred, I have been happy.
"If you are playing down the order early in your career, you don't really get to understand your game in those 10-15 overs you get to play. Two, three years after that, once you start batting up the order, you learn more. I am lucky that way to start off at No. 3 right now. I learn a lot about my game"
Yeah, my mom tells me not to swear on the field. And obviously I get really embarrassed whenever she asks me. It's not a good word that comes out. I don't tell her anything; I just ask her to give me food at that point.
I didn't do anything about my bowling action. People think my action is so funny, and if I end up bowling a short ball, they will feel I am just having a walk in the park. But when I bowl I take it pretty seriously. In the IPL I always told them, "Give me the ball, I am not going to give more than eight runs an over." I have that feeling that I cannot let the batsmen hit me. I want to improve my bowling so that I can help in ODIs, and maybe in Test cricket too, when the bowlers are tired.
People said a lot of things. Some people said I changed because of Ray Jennings, some said it was because of playing under Anil bhai, but I just told you what the real deal was. Having all these people around was a great help. One thing [Kumble and I] had in common was being aggressive on the field. That's why we linked up really well. And he didn't mind me being aggressive on the field. He really enjoyed my aggression. It was great fun playing under him. He's a legend of the game and it was obviously an honour playing under him.
Oh, it's a very natural shot. I used to love facing left-arm spinners, even in junior cricket. Just loved stepping out and hitting them over covers. It's instinctive. You improvise that against fast bowlers as you grow as a batsman. Initially it was mainly against the spinners. It has always been one of my favourite shots.
Junior days, I used to play the flick very nicely. But this shot, I don't know where I developed it from, honestly. It just became my strength. I started playing it well, and started generating a lot of power with it, and started hitting sixes. The bottom hand just started coming into play. Probably because of T20. Before, I used to play the flick in very conventional fashion. Now it's become one of my powerful shots.
My cover-drive and on-drive to spinners against the turn.
Initially I had the impression about international cricket that it was difficult to score boundaries. So I used to wait for the boundary ball and just be like, "Oh, I have to put that away and not concentrate on taking singles." After that, Gary and me had a long talk about it. [About how to] play around with the bowlers' minds as well. Just keep pushing it around, tapping it and running, getting into line and playing it to square leg.
See, the last one and a half years, I have played consistently at No. 3. So playing in the middle, around 30-35 overs every game, has made me understand my strengths and weaknesses. If you are playing down the order early in your career, you don't really get to understand your game in those 10-15 overs you get to play. Two, three years after that, once you start batting up the order, you learn more. I am lucky that way to start off at No. 3 right now. I learn a lot about my game.
Sriram Veera is a staff writer at ESPNcricinfo