SO WHY is Munaf the way he is? For that, you will have to hit rewind button back all those to years to Ikhar, 70 km away from Baroda, where the Mariamben Memorial School student “played cricket for fun with a tennis ball”, barefeet, no money to buy a pair of shoes, staying in a “small house” with his father, “a farmer”, mother and two younger sisters.
Tennis ball to leather, district-level matches, a godfather-businessman Ismail Matadar, former India wicket-keeper and selector Kiran More’s academy in Baroda, Dennis Lillee’s MRF academy in Chennai, some work on his action, the shoulder fracture while playing for India A in 2003, the comeback, Sachin Tendulkar spotting him during a Team India pre-season training camp, the move to Mumbai, then Maharashtra and finally the first Test against England in Mohali last March, when his family bought its first TV.
“At that time, the whole world was at my door. But today all I have is my loneliness, and my mental strength. Do you know that after all the talk about my commitment and fitness, I have not gone home? I came straight to Pune after the England one-day series to train in Maharashtra’s domestic camp here. I am so upset that I can’t face my parents. But I know this is the time you need to be at your strongest. I want to survive.”
From that Mohali debut, Munaf went with the team to West Indies, where skipper Rahul Dravid realised that India had finally got a new, exciting pace pair in Munaf and Sreesanth, almost 10 years after Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad. Chappell saw a great combination of two right-arm pacers in a side packed with left-arm seamers. And soon enough, Munaf was flying, taking 14 wickets in four Tests, bowling fast, unveiling the one weapon that Team India had been missing badly since Srinath — the inswinger.
The hype built up, the village story made great copy, worked great on camera, Dravid was happy. And Munaf? He was worried.
For, that incredibly street-smart cricket brain had figured out then — and rightly so, says Chappell — that he didn’t have the body, the control or the fitness history needed for a 145-kmph career.
“I had understood, especially after my first five one-dayers last year (just two wickets in 41 overs), that when I go all out, I am really not able to succeed. It was looking good on TV, but it was not helping my career at all. Soon, I started talking to lot of fast bowlers, especially Glenn McGrath during the one-day series in Malaysia and the Champions Trophy. And that was when I decided to bowl around the 135 kmph-mark, focusing on line and length, and I started getting wickets (27 in the next 19 one-dayers). So you tell me, won’t you adopt an approach that has worked for you? What are these numbers anyway, 140, 135? You want me to bowl 140 kmph or you want me to bowl consistently well, in the right areas, take wickets?”
The answer, he says, lies in his bowling during the Malaysia series in September (7 wickets in three games) and that magic spell of 8-2-18-3 in Jaipur against England in early November that set up India’s only win in the Champions Trophy.
But then, for Munaf, Glenn McGrath became almost an obsession, and without realising it, he began to copy the Aussie ace’s action, too. It all added up, began to affect his natural rhythm, and finally ended in that ankle injury in South Africa — he played just one ODI there in November, hung around with the team for two months, and was pushed in for the last Test by a team desperate to win the series, when he was still evidently still limping.
Here’s where the Munaf story loses the plot in a haze of speculation: was he hiding his injury, or was he fit but scared to play?
Munaf says he was unfit. Period. “See, the injury was on the bone, and obviously, not visible. Who will understand that? The physio knows it, ask him. He has the X-rays, the MRI scans. I can’t go around showing my X-rays to everybody who asks me. That’s between the physio and me, only the both of us know. Now, I am looking into your eyes, but do you have any idea of the anger that’s boiling inside me? I know what that injury was all about, when I should play, when I shouldn’t. Only me, nobody else. I never lie. Enough. You can write what you want to.”
Back for the home series against Sri Lanka, he took seven wickets in three games, took four more in three matches at the World Cup, and then stuttered to a stop in Bangladesh — this time, thanks to a strained back muscle.Was he lying? Was he hiding injuries? He was not picked for the Test series against England this year, was called in for the one-dayers after a stint at Chennai’s MRF academy to get his action back on track, struggled to find rhythm but still managed three wickets in two matches, and was then dropped again for the first three matches of the home series against Australia. And all this while, he could hear the whispers swirling around in the background. Was he lying?
“I keep hearing that all around me, I don’t know what to do? How can anybody dare accuse me of lying?”
By now, his eyes are blazing, he’s begun to swear, he’s almost lost it.
Quickly, you ask: 17 months since debut, goals? “Shall I say 500 wickets? It will be good for your headline. I am just trying to work hard, leave me alone.”
Seven Tests, 25 wickets, but only one Test this year, comeback? “Dekho, if you perform, take wickets, nobody can stop you.”
Fourteen ODIs in the first six months, just 11 games in the last 10 months, McGrath action? “Woh sab mera problem hai. This is not your problem.”
Sreesanth, RP Singh and Irfan Pathan? Slowly, a smile begins to light up the room, for the first time in 60 minutes. “Oh, we are very close. We are all from MRF and we have come up together, Sreesanth, RP Singh, Irfan Pathan, often staying together for five months at a stretch. We have become so close we can shout and scream at each other, fight for getting the right end to bowl from in a match, and still end up hugging, laughing and joking in the evening.”
But what about fighting with them for a place in the team? “This field is one where there’s a replacement for everybody. Except for Sachin Tendulkar, the king. Otherwise, it’s like a lottery, you get your chance, you do well; if you don’t, somebody takes your place. All of us know that.”
But let me tell you one last thing, he says, turning back to the Twenty20 frenzy on TV. “Over the last year, I have learnt a lot. (At the World Cup in West Indies) I saw one placard in the stands that said ‘007, Munaf is the Bond’. The hype surrounding this game, that’s what pushes you up, and then drags you down. You are a hero one day, then you are a zero. That’s part of the tamasha. All I think of these days is about whom I am, where I have come from, and where I need to go. That’s all.”