2. Sachin Tendulkar
The greatest batter
Overall: 19,945 runs at 49.25 ave, 110 wickets at 46.75 ave
I think what made Sachin Tendulkar so good was his read on the game. Every bowler has a passage of play, like the old-school away-away-in. He read my passage of play and what I was looking to do to get him out: when I was going to bowl my bouncer, when I was going to go straight at the stumps. More times than not, he knew when I was going for the kill, and he had it covered.
And then I'd have to start that whole passage of play all over again, to try and fool him as to when it was coming. And then, when I'd deliver that killer strike again, he'd be able to defend it again. I found that incredibly frustrating.
I'd love to have a conversation with him about how he did it. I've heard that Andre Agassi used to drill Boris Becker's serve back past him, and for years, Becker never understood how he did it. Agassi had realised that every time Becker hit his serve a particular way, he would stick his tongue out in that direction. He knew exactly where it was coming.
It was only post-careers that they had this conversation. I've never really spoken to Sachin about this, and I'd love to know whether he saw me giving off signs that nobody else was able to pick up. That would be quite interesting. Because genuinely, almost every time I tried that killer blow, I felt like he had me covered. I was like, I've disguised this, like I'm a magician, I don't understand how he was able to see it.
I remember getting him out in Nagpur, when I took a seven-for in 2010. Last ball of the previous over, I had bowled him an awayswinger and he had driven me for four. I had got a couple of balls to actually swing back in, and M Vijay left one and I bowled him. So that was the pattern of play I was working on.
First ball of the next over, I said, you know what, I'm not going to go for the inswinger, I'm going to go awayswing. I bowled the awayswinger, and his feet weren't quite there. And maybe that was the one time he probably didn't know what was coming. Maybe breaking my own pattern of play managed to confuse him. I should have done that more in my career.
When I bowled to AB de Villiers in white-ball cricket, he also often knew exactly what I was looking to bowl. Some of the New Zealand players, like Trent Boult, said they would go and do the exact opposite of what they were thinking of doing. So if they were thinking yorker, they would run in and bowl AB a bouncer, because he knew a yorker was coming. So maybe I should have done that more to Tendulkar.
When I did get him out, you would see the jubilation in my celebration, because I felt I'd managed to make a real breakthrough, not just for the team but for myself too, because when I played against him, I had this personal battle going on.
From everything I'd heard from everyone who's played against him, Sachin was an unflustered kind of person. He never really got into the verbals and just held his composure. So one of my biggest highlights was that, once or twice in my career, I managed to get him to say something to me. It was a massive feather in my cap. I actually turned around and said to him, oh my word, you're actually saying something to me?
At Newlands in 2011, for about an hour on the third morning, I bowled to Sachin at one end and Morne Morkel to Gautam Gambhir at the other, and the strike never rotated. That was kind of the game plan. Morne bowled particularly well to left-handers. He had this ability of coming around the wicket with his height and was able to straighten the ball and find the edge of the left-handers, and sometimes get one to squat and get you out lbw or bowled. He got Andrew Strauss out a bunch of times. I had this classic awayswinger with the odd wobble-seam ball that would land and kind of nip back.
So I said, I'll take Tendulkar and you take the left-hander. And I think they'd also worked it out, and Sachin was kind of comfortable with me and Gautam was comfortable with Morne, which is strange. It's probably why Gautam Gambhir has Morne as his bowling coach right now!
I can't remember whether they turned down singles. It was just a very strange passage of play, where the two of us were going head to head with these two batters and we just couldn't get them out. It didn't matter what we did.
I went past the bat numerous times, but Sachin didn't let that affect him. With Sachin, when I'd bowled in a particular area for a long period, he didn't throw it away. Other guys would see half of a half-volley and just go at it, and in South Africa, with that little bit of bounce, that little bit of nip, you often find the edge. Sachin literally waited for the ball to almost be right under his eyes for a classic cover drive, where the percentages were in his favour. I think he first toured South Africa in 1992, so he knew those conditions better than most South Africans.
The Tendulkar shot that frustrated me the most, particularly in one-day cricket, was when I would bowl a perfect ball, top of off stump or fourth stump, going away, and he was able to hit the ball extremely late through square leg. My best ball. Worst-case scenario, I find a thicker edge and it goes down a third man. Best-case scenario, he nicks it to the keeper or slips. Or he leaves it. But he would be hitting that ball through square leg, not through midwicket. He wasn't working it. He wasn't closing the bat face. He was hitting it extremely late through square leg, almost letting it slide off his bat.
My biggest danger, my biggest threat delivery, he was hitting it in an area where I didn't want to have a fielder. And the worst thing is, I would eventually move a fielder there. I'd have another one on the leg side. And then he would stand still and be able to hit the same ball through point.
It was incredibly frustrating that he could manipulate the ball from the crease through those two areas. It's tough setting a field for somebody who's able to do that kind of thing. You can't bowl a dot ball to them. One-day cricket is all about building pressure. If you can't do that, you go searching.
When he scored his ODI double-century against us, in Gwalior, I remember bowling a perfect yorker wide outside off stump, off-side field packed. And I remember him walking across and flicking me through midwicket with absolute ease. I was just thinking to myself: what's going on here?
It was a beautiful pitch to bat on, and again, he was able to read the play, back his ability, and have the shots to be able to do that. It was wizardry, because there weren't a lot of guys doing that at that time. And 200 had never been done before. A few guys have now followed once he broke that mould. But at the time: incredible.
I'm a bit of a cricket nut - I love the '90s, I love who was around in those days. Sachin was a legend way, way before I made my debut. So to still catch him in his pomp, and for him to score 200 against us, it's one of my favourite games.
It's not always about running in and taking wickets. Sometimes it's about great cricket games and being part of history in one way or another. Sri Lanka, the highest partnership ever, with Mahela and Sangakkara - I was there, I was bowling. It's great to feel part of cricket history.
I was a change-room attendant at Centurion during the 2003 World Cup, and I was there when India played against Pakistan. I've never seen Supersport Park light up like that before. Tendulkar upper-cut Shoaib Akhtar for six, and I remember thinking: What!? This is insane, you know? And thinking, I can't wait to play, I wish I could play against this guy. Shoaib Akhtar, fastest bowler in the world, 100 miles per hour, and this is what he's doing to that guy. I can't wait. And I was fortunate enough to get my turn.
As told to Karthik Krishnaswamy
Stats are for the 2000-2025 period