T
HE NEW MILLENNIuM had
brought new promise and in the
summer of 2002 in England, Team
India witnessed a resurgence. Led
by one of India’s best captains in Sourav
Ganguly, two of its best all-time bats-
men in Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul
Dravid, two world-class spinners in Anil
Kumble and Harbhajan Singh and fast-
bowlers like Zaheer Khan who could
make batsmen hop, India was suddenly
a real force in international cricket.
As a result, the Indians won a famous
Test match and also went on to win the
Natwest Series in June-July, 2002.
In the words of Tendulkar, as
described in his autobiography: ‘At
Headingley, 22-26 August, 2002, the
wicket was very damp at the start of
the match. Despite this, however, we
decided to bat first after winning the
toss. It was a unanimous decision for we
were all in agreement that come what
may we would bat first and put runs on
the board. We needed to score big in the
first innings to be able to put the English
under pressure. Sehwag got out early but
then Rahul Dravid and Sanjay Bangar,
our makeshift opener for the game, put
together an excellent partnership that
swung the momentum our way. Batting
wasn’t easy on a fresh wicket and both of
them played exceptionally well leaving
a lot of balls outside the off stump.
In this innings, Flintoff bowled a
hostile spell to me at the start and I just
had to knuckle down and play him off.Quality swing is difficult to negotiate
and I knew I had to be watchful. Sourav
was batting with me at the other end and
was going after Ashley Giles who was
once again bowling the defensive line to
me outside my leg stump. Sourav, a left-
hand batsman, wanted as much strike as
possible against Giles and that’s what we
did in this innings. We shifted gears in
the third session of the day and launched
into the English bowlers who were
gradually starting to get tired. It was one
of those rare matches where we refusedto take the light even when the umpires
offered it to us. We had built excellent
momentum and were dominating pro-
ceedings and there was no reason to take
up the offer of bad light. At the end of the
day, I was unbeaten on 185 and we had
already put up a mammoth score on the
board. We could not lose the Test match
from there on and our bowlers had loads
of runs to play with and put the English
batsmen under pressure. England’s task
had become more difficult because the
wicket had started to turn uneven and
the odd ball had started to keep low.
Finally, we declared our first innings at
628-8, one of our highest ever scores on
English soil.
Thereafter the bowlers took over and
from the start of the English innings,
managed to put them under pres-
sure. Kumble and Harbhajan bowled
beautifully in tandem in not so helpful
conditions and both picked up three
wickets each in the first innings, and we
enforced the follow on. Our huge first
innings score allowed us to put many
fielders in catching positions and we
could keep attacking the whole time.
And in the second innings with close
to 400 runs in the bank we kept up the
pressure and gave each English batsman
a hard time. Even Nasser who scored a
hundred in the second innings wasn’t
spared and there was a lot of banter in
the middle. None of us held ourselves
back and our bowlers stood up to the
opportunity, and made regular inroads
into the English batting. Each wicket
was followed by a lot of talk and the new
batsman was given a rousing welcome
to the wicket. When Andrew Flintoff got
out for a pair, caught by Dravid at slips
off Zaheer Khan, our premier left-arm
fast bowler, we knew we were within
striking distance of a famous victory.
Anil did the rest of the job picking up
four wickets and we bowled England
out for 309, winning the match by an
innings and 44 runs.’A DrAw to reMeMber
A ticket stub of the 2002 Test match at Headingley2002
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