Out-tweaking the tweak king

All this on the same day he requested that he be switched from bowling to Team India to the world champions.

‘‘The ball pitched on the seam and bounced to hit Warne straight on his right hand thumb. Immediately he threw the gloves away. I went upto him and said ‘sorry’, but he said ‘it’s okay’,’’explained the latest cricketing celebrity around these parts.

But he added that Warne went on to play 20 more balls before calling off the session. ‘‘I went to shake hands with him, but he said ‘mate, the finger’s got swollen’ and couldn’t shake my hands,’’ said Nizam.

Only when Nizam went back home and learnt the news that Warne had suffred a fracture on the thumb and ruled out of the Test, he “felt bad’’.

Nizam though started feeling better soon. ‘‘I thought about Laxmanbhai and how he could now score runs freely,’’ he said with a smile, in the context of Adam Gilchrist’s statement that Warne would be targetting VVS Laxman.

A student at Chandrakant Pandit’s Cricket Academy, Nizam also bowled to Matthew Hayden, Simon Katich and Ricky Ponting at the nets. ‘‘While Hayden got a little upset by my bowling, I got Ponting out at least twice,’’ he said taking a glance at his friends waiting to pull his leg over the new-found fame.