No Boundaries (16 page)

T
he year got off to a perfect start when I found myself back at St John's Hospital in Chelmsford on 6 January, rubbing soothing oils into Lorraine's back as she gave birth to our second daughter, Maria Jane. It had been another super pregnancy – I had chosen my breeding stock well! – and it was helped by the fact that Lorraine's mum Pat had moved in with us and become part of the family. I even managed to persuade Lorraine to stop pushing long enough for me to see the end of Manchester United beating West Ham in the FA Cup on TV. Maria was born in injury time. Her arrival meant another bout of sleepless nights and a lot of shoving food through the blender – Lorraine insisted on all natural food – but she was worth it.

Things were also getting exciting on the cricket front. Before the season had even started, I knew it was going to be a lot better. Stuart Law had moved on to Lancashire and, even more important, Graham Gooch was going to be more hands-on as the team coach. His first decision turned out to be a gem – he brought in Andy Flower as our new overseas
player. Andy was sheer class. At that time he was one of the top-rated batsmen in Test cricket, which was some feat when you consider he was never able to face his own Zimbabwe bowlers. He was also one of the finest wicketkeepers in the world and turned out to be a great influence in the dressing room. He was completely supportive, always positive and ever ready to help the young players. The atmosphere at the club was transformed. He made the job of being captain so much easier.

Working on a daily basis with Goochie and sharing the crease with Andy, my batting went up to another level. Andy and I scored a lot of runs together. It was a great combination – a right- and left-hander so the bowlers could never get set; he would manipulate the bowling and make them defensive so I could be aggressive. And we talked a lot, keeping each other going out there. I am not at all surprised that Andy has gone on to become a top coach and landed the England job. I think he will do terrifically well and to my mind the dream ticket would now be to bring in Graham Gooch as the England team manager.

I have been very fortunate and played with some great wicketkeepers in my career but Andy's presence behind the stumps also improved my bowling. James Foster had kept for us but he was off at university. James probably had the best hands of the lot and that is saying something when you consider I've played alongside Alec Stewart, Jack Russell, Keith Piper and Warren Hegg. It's a travesty that James has only played a handful of Tests for England but, having got the nod, he suffered a freak accident in the nets at Chelmsford when a ball from Andy Clark smashed his arm and, by the time he was fit again, Alec Stewart was firmly entrenched once more. Fozzy could bat a bit as well. He was
a dogged terrier of a batsman who would knuckle down and dig out the runs, especially in one-day cricket and was greatly appreciated by his team-mates. We also had a fine keeper in Barry Hyam, who had two of the best hands I've come across. I've seen him win man-of-the-match awards just for his keeping, pulling off some incredible catches. But sadly he struggled to make an impact with the bat, and you need runs from your keeper.

Having Andy Flower behind the stumps changed things for me because he was willing to stand up to the wicket. Every other keeper I'd played with stood back but now batsmen were unable to come down the wicket to me and try to knock me off a length and I started to pick up more and more wickets.

I was producing some of the best cricket of my life and, while I'd always enjoyed playing, even in the bad times, this was better than anything I'd experienced since I was a kid. Essex were winning matches and on course to reclaim their place in Division One and the media were floating my name to play for England again.

I was desperate for another chance to pull on an England sweater once more, especially with the World Cup coming up the following winter, but hardly dared hope I would get a recall. I tried not to get my hopes up too high but I'd never lost belief that I was good enough and just hoped that the selectors were noticing what was happening at Chelmsford. It turned out they were. When the squad was announced for the triangular NatWest ODI tournament with Sri Lanka and India, I was in. All I had to do was to reproduce my county form at international level and I might be able to book a seat on the World Cup plane.

England started with a victory over Sri Lanka at Trent
Bridge where Stewie and I put on a rapid 95 before Freddie Flintoff smashed the fastest ever half-century by an England player, 50 off 18 balls. The second match was against India at Lord's and as usual Duncan Fletcher was his meticulous self, sitting us down to watch videos of the opposition and discuss how we would handle each of them. At the time Sachin Tendulkar was in his prime. The ‘little master' was scoring runs for fun and bowlers were despairing about where to put the ball to him. You seldom felt you could tempt him into anything even slightly rash. With someone like Brian Lara, who I'm proud to say I once dismissed in both innings of a match against Warwickshire, you always felt you had a chance because you could bowl a good line and length and he would still risk an edge or miss-hit trying to smash you out of the ground. But Tendulkar would respect a good ball and only when you strayed, even slightly, would he take you on. It would usually result in a four or a six, so you can imagine everyone's reaction when my mate Darren Gough said, ‘You're the man for Tendulkar, Ronnie.'

As the laughter died down, I grinned and said, ‘Don't take the piss, Goughie.'

‘No, I'm serious. He won't like batting against you. He doesn't like your type of bowling.'

‘What? Crap?'

Darren smiled. ‘No, you're better than that. What I mean is, he doesn't like slow bowling.'

‘Hang on a minute, I'm not that slow.'

By now the rest of the lads were pissing themselves laughing. But Goughie insisted on making his point: ‘You're slower than the rest of us and he likes to have the ball come on to him so he can use the pace. I'm telling you, he won't like facing you, especially if the keeper's up.'

It turned out he was dead right. I had a really good series against Sachin, especially in the first Lord's match. I was trying to get in his face and break his concentration. It wasn't my style to swear or have a go at batsmen. I liked to look them in the eye and maybe have a joke with them, let them know I was confident and enjoying taking them on. He wasn't having any of it, so the next time he was at the bowler's end I said, ‘Hey, Sachin, you've always struggled against my bowling. Why's that? You're number one in the world and you're not hitting me off the square. How come?'

To my surprise, he bit and hit me with the best comeback I ever received. ‘Ronnie,' he said, ‘this is my 305th one-day international. Believe me, I like your bowling.'

I thought, Oh fuck, what have I done? I feared I'd poked a stick in a hornets' nest and my confidence wasn't helped when I said to Graham Thorpe at mid-on, ‘Did you hear that?'

‘Yeah. Tell Nasser to get you off quick. In fact, don't finish the over. Go off sick.'

‘Fuck off, I've broken him. No one's managed to get a word out of him and now I've destroyed his concentration.'

‘No, dickhead. You've just persuaded the world
number-one
batsman that he has to prove how much he enjoys your bowling. How many more balls, umpire?'

‘Shut up, I've got him.' I didn't actually believe it but as it turned out it was true.

They nicked a single off my next ball and then I ran in to bowl to Sachin. The ball took the slope, nipped back and cracked against his knee roll. The whole team went up in a massive appeal. Even Freddie Flintoff at square leg knew it was plumb. I didn't give a toss about technicalities: if you can
get past Sachin Tendulkar's bat and hit him on the pad, that's out for me. And Neil Mallender – what a great umpire – agreed and stuck his finger in the air.

The only person with no inkling that it could be out was Sachin, who was trying to sneak a single. As he raced down the pitch, he met me coming the other way with my back to him, still triumphantly yelling my appeal. And that is how a jockey-sized batsman knocked a 6ft 4in bowler on his arse in the middle of the pitch. As I got up and dusted myself off, I called out, ‘Hey, Sachin, this is my fifth one-day international and I like your batting!' I don't think he heard me above the tumult from the crowd. When India play at Lord's the whole Indian community in London seems to turn out, so it was no real surprise that, when the England hero made his way to the boundary after the over, he was booed for dismissing the little master.

Despite my triumph and a great knock from Marcus Trescothick, we lost the match with seven balls to go.

We scored a second win over Sri Lanka at Headingley and I was really beginning to feel at home as an England player again. I was promoted to bat at three to hurry things along and managed to hit a useful 27 in as many balls. Our next match against India at the Riverside was eventually washed out but not before Tendulkar had smashed an unbeaten century. However, as I pointed out to Darren Gough, he never hit one boundary off my bowling.

A surprise defeat by Sri Lanka at Old Trafford meant we needed to beat India at the Oval and it turned out to be one of the greatest days of my life. Again I was promoted to bat at three and it worked like a dream. I saw the ball as big as a football and was able to steer it all round the ground. I reached my first international half-century in 55 balls,
helping to take England from 52-1 to 202-5, but in the end we were only defending 229 against one of the most prolific batting line-ups in the world.

At the start of the series, I'd asked Stewie to stand up to the stumps when I bowled. He'd been unsure because some bowlers feel it demeans them to have the keeper up. I didn't care about that. Thanks to Andy Flower, I'd seen how it helped my chances and I was more concerned about taking wickets than whether some people thought I was too slow. India were looking good at 62-1 with Virender Sehwag scoring at faster than a run a ball, but I managed to find the edge of his bat and Alec took a sharp chance. He then stumped Yuvraj Singh off my bowling and in one
mind-blowing
five-ball spell I took three more wickets – one of them caught by Alec – without conceding a run. My
team-mates
mobbed me and I couldn't remember feeling more fulfilled on a cricket pitch. The crowd absolutely loved it and went mad every time I went back to the boundary. I felt on an incredible high and so proud when I saw the delight on my dad's face as he sat among the fans who were singing my name. It was less than a year since his major operation and the fact that he was there to share in my great day meant everything to me.

The icing on the cake came when their number-eleven batsman Ashish Nehra hoisted Alex Tudor towards long on and I managed to make up the ground and take the final catch of the match. With Alec Stewart excelling behind the stumps, we had bowled them out and I became only the second Englishman (with Graeme Hick) to take five wickets and score 50 runs in the same match. My bowling figures of 5-26 are still a world record for an ODI at the Oval.

The next day the back pages of the papers carried huge pictures of me, banner headlines and reports all agreeing that I had left the international wilderness and was now back in the mainstream. Suddenly people who had written me off as ‘enthusiastic but not quite good enough' were saying I might be one of the keys to our World Cup chances. Most satisfying was when I watched the highlights on TV and heard David Lloyd, the man who had turned against me on tour, say, ‘Ronnie Irani has even taken the last catch. You can't keep the lad out of the game.'

The win set up what turned out to be a thrilling final at Lord's between us and India when they got their revenge in a feast of runs. Marcus Trescothick and Nasser Hussain scored centuries as we piled on 325 in our 50 overs. That should have been ample to win the match but Nass had made the mistake of sledging Mohammad Kaif in an earlier match, asking him if he was Sachin's kit man, and the Indian batsman took his revenge. I was one of the bowlers he smashed all round the ground as he hit 87 in 75 balls. Even though we had knocked over Tendulkar and Dravid cheaply, Yuvraj Singh and Kaif battered us and India got home with three balls to spare. It was disappointing not to win the tournament but a very important few weeks for me were crowned when I was voted the Fans Player of the Tournament. I liked to think they knew I would always fight to the final ball for my country and was chuffed the Barmy Army had taken to me as one of their own, just as the Essex crowd had.

The selectors obviously saw me as a one-day player because they didn't pick me for the Test series that summer, but I was quite happy to go back to Essex and help them win promotion for the second time in three years, confident that
I had done enough to earn a place in the World Cup squad that winter. What I didn't realise was that politics were going to play as big a part as cricket.

I
t was going to be a busy winter for England cricketers. There was the small matter of an Ashes and ODI series Down Under before moving on to South Africa for the 2003 World Cup. I’d come to terms with the fact that I was no longer considered a five-day player by the selectors so I wasn’t at all surprised when the radio announced that I was to be part of the squad for an ICC one-day tournament in Sri Lanka intended as preparation for the World Cup. You can therefore imagine my shock when a letter landed on the mat that said: ‘Congratulations, you’ve been chosen to tour Australia with England.’ It went on to tell me where and when to report and what my fee would be. According to this, I was in the Test party. I immediately suspected a cock-up and, even though Lorraine pointed out it was a contract and I should just turn up at the airport and see what they said, I decided to phone David Graveney.

He was very embarrassed and said, ‘Err, sorry, Ronnie, that’s a mistake. That wasn’t meant to go to you. Just tear it up. I’m really sorry.’

With the World Cup coming up I wasn’t in the mood to rock the boat, so I threw the letter in the bin, but to this day I’ve never resolved if it was just incompetence or if I had originally been selected and someone had put the block on.

The Sri Lanka trip was hard work. The heat was so oppressive it burned your throat. Dominic Cork and I knew we were on trial for a place in Australia and the World Cup so, even though it felt as though there wasn’t enough air to fill your lungs when you bowled, we had to keep galloping in. If anything, I think Dom tried too hard and he missed out when it was announced who would join up with the squad for the ODIs in Australia. Personally I would have taken him because he was still a good enough bowler to change games.

We got a drubbing in Sri Lanka. I scored a few runs against India and managed to pick up four wickets against Zimbabwe, including Andy Flower. His brother Grant restored family honour by getting me out sweeping. But, as I’d hoped, my name was down for Australia along with Nick Knight, James Kirtley and Jeremy Snape.

The news from the Ashes tour was all bad. England were being taken apart and the media were starting to be very negative back home. I did some interviews before I left and, when I was asked if I was dreading what I would find, I replied, ‘Actually I’m looking forward to the series. It’s a golden opportunity for me. Everybody’s saying, “Oh, God, you’re going to get your arses whipped, sheep to the slaughter.” Well, bollocks, wolves in sheep’s clothing, that’s what you’ve got to hope. We can’t be all doom and gloom, thinking, Yeah here comes a pounding. No way. I don’t train hard, leave my family behind, live every minute of the day for the game, to come here hoping, if it all goes well, I’ll be back in one piece. I’m thinking, I’m up for it – let’s get it on.’

It all sounded great as I said it and I meant every word. But I admit to a moment’s concern when I saw the banner headline in the
Sun
which read: ‘B****CKS TO AUSSIES: Ronnie rallies England with one-day battle cry’ and wondered if I might have just stirred up the chaps in the baggy green caps even more than usual. But then I thought, Sod it. That’s how they play cricket. Let’s show them we can be in your face too.

The England camp was certainly at a low ebb when we joined up with them. Only Freddie Flintoff, who was getting himself fit again after injury, was his usual lively self. The energy he puts into cricket is also applied to his social life. I recall him picking up four beer bottles between his fingers, somehow getting all the necks to his mouth at once and downing the contents. I’ve also seen him drink a bottle of champagne in one go and give out the biggest belch I’ve ever heard. In Adelaide, he asked me for ten dollars and, when I asked him what it was for, he said, ‘Champagne.’ When I pointed out that you couldn’t buy bubbly for ten bucks, he replied, ‘No, but it will get me into the Crazy Horse and I’ll put the rest on my card.’ But Freddie’s an outstanding cricketer. He is a quick and accurate bowler and a clean hitter of the ball. I always enjoyed taking him on when we played against each other. The only downside was that, while he liked to give out stick, he wasn’t great at taking it.

I have to say I love the way Australians play cricket. They are tough, they are ruthless and they are desperate to win. They will try to intimidate you but afterwards they will buy you a beer. They also have a lot of time for people who will stand up to them and give them a game. I witnessed one of the best examples of how cricket should be played in the warm-up game against New South Wales at the Sydney
Cricket Ground. Stuart McGill, a magnificent spinner who would have won many more caps if he hadn’t been unfortunate enough to be the same generation as Shane Warne, was bowling to me and I played a terrific shot to the boundary. He just quietly said, ‘Good shot.’ The next ball was such a beauty I wasn’t good enough to even get an edge. That’s great cricket.

The other side of the Aussies, of course, is that they are mouthy bastards who never know when to shut up. I realised they too had seen the headline in the
Sun
when I faced a barrage of abuse as I walked out to bat. They knew I was under pressure and fighting for my World Cup place, and Glenn McGrath greeted me with ‘You’re going to get a duck, Irani.’

I was again batting three and expected to move things along but I didn’t want to risk throwing away my wicket so it took me some time to get off the mark. After each ball, I’d hear McGrath chuntering, ‘You’re going to get a duck, Irani. No problem. Big fat duck.’

I managed to knock one into the offside and was looking for a quick single to get me going but Steve Waugh swooped on the ball and yelled, ‘Fucking get back, pommie!’ and proceeded to give me a gobful of abuse.

I was beginning to think McGrath might be right but then I told myself that, if they were going to this length to put me off, they must rate me. So I gritted my teeth and smiled so they couldn’t tell if they were getting to me. Brett Lee came steaming in. He was rapid and, with the keeper rabbiting in my ear behind me, it wasn’t easy to concentrate. The ball reared up towards my head and I pivoted to hook it. Instead, I got a top edge that flew over the slip fielders’ heads and crashed against the boundary board. ‘I say, old boy, that was
rather fortunate,’ was not quite how the Aussies put it, but it was the gist of what they meant. I went on to make 80 very satisfying runs.

Bowling in the NSW innings wasn’t as much fun as batting had been. Nasser was determined we were going to use the game to practise how we would play in the World Cup and everyone, including the Aussie batsmen, could hear him yell, ‘You’ve got to practise yorkers.’

Now, Steve Waugh is one of the finest batsmen his country has produced. Bowling to him in front of his home crowd in Sydney, where he is considered a god, is hard enough without telling him exactly where the ball is going to pitch. It’s uncanny in Sydney: the crowd seem to almost whisper his name, but with 12,000 people that makes for a very weird, almost mystic sound. That became a roar when he took his left leg out of the way and despatched my next yorker for the biggest six I’ve ever seen. Thanks, Nass. The home fans had a wonderful afternoon’s entertainment as Steve battered us around and won them the game, the final runs an unstoppable boundary off my bowling.

There are some great stadiums where cricket is played, like the MCG in Melbourne, but for me Sydney is the ultimate cricket ground. It has character and a wonderful,
old-fashioned
pavilion. It is helped by being in a fantastic city where you always need mirror sunglasses on the beach so no one, especially your wife, can see where you are looking. Steve Waugh is one of the city’s greatest sons, along with his younger brother – by four minutes – Mark. Both have that irresistible combination of talent and will to win that I like in a player. They back themselves to do well every time they cross the boundary rope and you just know they would have succeeded at whatever sport or occupation they had taken up
in life. Frank Dick always used to say that, when faced with a team full of really good players, a coach didn’t necessarily look to see who was the most talented but which of them was most willing to fine-tune and improve their skills. That was the Waugh brothers.

I only had a few chances to talk to Steve but was always impressed by his knowledge and thought he was a great bloke to share a beer with. I got to know Mark really well because he was Essex’s overseas player soon after I joined. We only played together for a year but I could happily have played cricket with him every single day of my life. What an attitude! I remember turning up at Colchester for a match when he was struggling with a groin strain. ‘I’m playing, mate,’ he said. ‘There’s 140 just for the taking in that wicket.’ He scored a century. He didn’t care who the opposition were: he was confident he would come out on top and usually did.

Mark always had a smile on his face and a kind spirit. As a teenager, I’d played with another of the brothers, Dean Waugh, who tore bowlers apart in the Bolton League and had a fair career but was always in the shadow of the twins. Mark was always generous when talking about Dean and I sensed he would have loved it if all three brothers could have played in the same Aussie side. Mark enjoyed a good time, loved a bet and particularly loved his cricket. I always relished his company and one of my ambitions is to go back to Australia with the family and spend some time with him, maybe even challenge him to a game of golf for a few dollars. He wouldn’t be able to resist that.

The ODIs were a disappointment. I had a bad series but that was partly because my mind wasn’t completely on my cricket. It had been arranged that wives and families would fly out shortly before Christmas but I got a call from Lorraine
telling me she had suffered a third miscarriage. I have never felt so far away from home in my life. I longed to be with her because I knew how much she would be hurting. She put on a brave face and told me not to worry. ‘Concentrate on your cricket. The girls and I will come out as soon as we can.’ But I could tell she was really longing for a hug. I was concerned how the girls were coping – they were too young to understand what had happened but they would certainly sense something was wrong and this was just the time when Lorraine would need Daddy to take them out while she came to terms with her own grief.

It was harder to deal with because none of my close mates was there to help – no Tuffers, Thorpe or Gough. I felt lonely and I felt guilty. For several nights I cried myself to sleep, knowing that, as much as I loved playing cricket, it isn’t the be all and end all in life. But, after everything that had happened on other tours, I didn’t want to show any weakness to the management so I kept things bottled up. Strangely, the people I was best able to talk to during this time were some of my Aussie friends.

Not everyone approved of my willingness to be matey with the opposition once we were off the pitch. Just as in the Tests, the Aussies were taking us to the cleaners in the ODIs and enjoying every minute of it. After a reasonable first match, I was struggling to score runs and in Sydney was dismissed for a duck. I knew several of the Aussie team – I’d met Ricky Ponting and Brett Lee through Mark Waugh, played against Adam Gilchrist in the U19s, and against Matthew Hayden when he was in the Bolton League with Greenmount and later with Hampshire and Northants. After the match, I shook hands with Ricky and he said, ‘If you fancy a drink, mate, come in our changing room. No problem.’

Our dressing room was as flat as stale beer. The only voice was Nasser’s telling us how shit we all were. When he’d finished I put on my trainers and went to leave the room. Alec Stewart asked where I was going and when I said, ‘Next door for a beer,’ he decided to join me, as did young Owais Shah. Some would see it as consorting with the enemy but I’ve always felt, if you get to know an opponent as an ordinary bloke with whom you get on socially, you don’t fear him as much when you are head to head out on the pitch.

It also gives you a chance to talk cricket to some of the best players in the world and you can learn from that. I’m sure that, once he was able to get over his awe at having a beer with Shane Warne, Owais learned a lot that day. Before long, most of the England team had followed us into the Aussie dressing room and it was a good craic. The thing that surprised me was that the lads said this was the first time they had socialised with the Aussies during the tour.

We’d been in there about an hour when Nick Knight, who had popped out for a minute, came back and announced, ‘You’re not going to believe this but Nass and Duncan Fletcher have fucked off on the team bus and left us here.’

I think it is fair to say the lads were not chuffed. They knew Nass would not want to go in the Aussie dressing room but thought he might have just given us a heads-up that they were leaving. As it was, they had just provided the Aussies with something else to sledge us about. We got our gear together and made our way back to the hotel in cabs. When we arrived, Nass was sitting at the bar. I called across, ‘Thanks for waiting for us, Nass.’

‘Serves you right, sucking up to the Aussies. Big mates, are we?’

‘Yeah, as it happens. I like some of them better than some of the people I’ve played with.’

‘Well, you go ahead and kiss their arse. But don’t expect the rest of us to hang about while you do it. While I’m in charge of the team, you get on the bus and go back to the hotel and, if you don’t like it, you know what you can do.’

I just shrugged and said, ‘No worries, pal.’ I really couldn’t understand his reasoning. To me, his attitude was a sign of weakness, having to build artificial antagonism against your opponent. Partly, I think, it was because he was a bit of a loner and preferred his own company. Quite often if you rang him in the hotel and asked if he wanted to go to dinner, he’d say, ‘What’s it to you?’ and eat alone. He really would have been happier as a tennis player. For me, the contest out in the middle was more than enough to fire me up. On the pitch I will fight for the badge as hard as anyone, perhaps harder than some. I hate to lose – it’s why I believe I’ve always enjoyed a rapport with the fans – but I don’t hate the guys I’m playing against. I can see nothing wrong in mixing with the opposition when the battle’s over. After all, the Aussies do it and it doesn’t seem to undermine their performances.