Sachin Tendulkar had already taken his mark and he was now looking straight at me as if to say: “Let’s have it.” I took my first tentative step with only one thing going through my mind: “I am in trouble”.

As I approached the crease, I wanted only one thing: a quickish away-swinger outside off, so that the little maestro would be merciful and let it go. I ended up bowling a whole lot fuller and straighter than I had hoped for — and it ended up being a near perfect yorker.

Of course, Tendulkar had no trouble in just gently knocking the ball back to me, but what he said caught me totally off guard. “Well bowled, mate.” There I was, a journalist — after a failed cricketing career — and arguably the best batsman the world has ever seen had just given me a compliment.

He might have done this for one of two reasons — he could see the nervous tension on my face, or he wanted to lure me into a false sense of confidence. It must have been the latter because for the next 20 minutes he ruthlessly dealt with anything I could dish up.

If it was short he would pull, anything pitched up would come screeching back past me and the more I bent my back to try and unsettle him (with what my high school mates used to refer to as pace) the more time Tendulkar seemed to have.

Had Tendulkar not been following all the negative media attention the touring party had been victim to? A whitewash in the ODI series and three Tests on the bouncy pitches against Pollock, Ntini, Nel and Steyn to come surely should not make Sachin and his team mates this confident?

Anyway, it had always been a dream of mine to bowl to the likes of Tendulkar, Ganguly and Laxman but now — three years after I quit the game — I finally got my chance. And I was having to work harder than I had ever imagined it would be.

When Chappell called: “Change it up” after what felt like an eternity, I had just started to think the torture was over. Then in walks Mr. Sourav Ganguly.

Ganguly at best is someone that will demoralise any attack, but for an unfit journalist to bowl to this man — with a huge point to prove and the cricketing world watching his every move — was something even less attractive standing some 30 metres away.

Luckily, Sreesanth gave me a few useful pointers on what I could improve on, and with that said the Ganguly stint went a whole lot better. So good in fact that after his knock had ended his icy gaze made way for a little smile as he put his arm around me and said I’d “done OK”.

After the rock solid Laxman, Dinesh Kaarthick was up and by this time my back was going into spasm even if my spirits were as high as ever. The flat Potchefstroom pitch had taken its toll on me so when Kaarthick got a leading edge off a short one, that would have been a dolly of a catch for even the worst mid-on, I knew that I had proven enough for today.

My big toe had started to bleed and this was just the excuse I needed to toss the ball back to Chappell. Besides, Mahendra Dhoni was already murdering the spinners in the other net and was bound to come in shortly.

(Eduan Roos is a senior cricket writer for Rapport, a Sunday Afrikaans newspaper. He is 23, has played in the under-19 team for North West Province, and was among the 100 Brightest Minds of South Africa in 2005).