'The whole Gaddafi Stadium was chanting my name'

[maniac]

L Balaji 'The whole Gaddafi Stadium was chanting my name' L Balaji got plenty of fans when he toured Pakistan in 2004. Shoaib Akhtar wasn't one of them Interview by Nagraj Gollapudi December 18, 2012 Comments: 31 | Login via | Text size: A | A L Balaji's favourite bowled dismissal: uprooting Kamran Akmal's stump in Rawalpindi, 2004 Jewel Samad / Ž© AFP Enlarge Related LinksPlayers/Officials: Lakshmipathy Balaji Teams: India Is it true that Imran Khan was your idol? He was one cricketer I had heard a lot about during my formative years. I enjoyed watching him during the 1992 World Cup final. As a ten-year-old, I would try to imitate his action. I read about him and took posters of his from old Sportstar magazines that I found at used-book shops. So it was nice to meet him in person on India's 2003-04 tour of Pakistan. He came up to me during a function and said he enjoyed watching my outswinger. I could not stop telling him how fascinating a bowler he was for me while growing up. It was a dream come true for me to meet him. He also said I had a nice smile. I could not stop smiling after that! Tell us something we do not know about you. I look reserved but as a child I was very naughty, and my mother would always worry about what I might have done, since I would climb trees to pluck mangoes, guavas, fall down, secretly fly kites from the terrace of our apartment building and come home having hurt myself. I have had a lot of stitches in my childhood. Ours was an academics-oriented house, and my two older sisters are engineers, like my dad. But I would lie and skip tuitions to join my friends to play gully cricket. My passion for cricket was born out of there. Has your smile ever got you in trouble? My sisters and close friends always tease me and say how is it that my smile started making headlines when they never noticed anything about it that stood out. I had jaw surgery once and the alignment of my teeth gives people the impression that I'm always smiling, even while facing a 150kph delivery from Shoaib Akhtar. Of course, I didn't smile then! What hurts more: a fellow fast bowler, a tailender, hitting you for a six or a specialist batsman hitting you for a six? Definitely a tailender hitting me for a six, because the team would be expecting me to wrap up the innings. Unfortunately anyone can hit you for a six with those heavy, meaty bats in the market today. Has Shoaib Akhtar forgiven you for hitting him for a six in the Test at his home ground, Rawalpindi, in 2004? He never forgot. On Pakistan's return tour of India in 2005, he said, "I still remember your six, okay? I have to give it back." He would repeat the line wherever he met me, on the ground, in the lifts at the team hotel... Your best five-for? On the first day of the first Test of the 2005 series against Pakistan, I took 5 for 76. I got one wicket in my first two spells but with the second new ball I wrapped up the lower middle order and the tail. It was a fulfilling day of cricket. A fast bowler looks for where he has enjoyed the whole day and balanced his workload to get the five-for. I remember getting the fifth wicket in the last over of the day. It was a satisfying experience. Who is the toughest Indian batsman you have bowled to? Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag. There is nothing like a good-length ball or a good ball for them. That is the feeling I get as a bowler from the way they bat. They adjust and adapt quickly to the bowler's lengths. Crowds love chanting your name since it rolls off the tongue easily and has a rhythm to it. Can you give us an instance of when the crowd egged you on to raise your level of play? It happened during the final match of the ODI series in Pakistan in 2004. The whole Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore was chanting my name. I was surprised to see a foreign crowd do that. In India you only hear the names of Sachin and Sourav mostly, but never Balaji. The series had been tied 2-2 going into the final match, and Moin Khan was standing strong and threatening to take the match away. But the crowd got me going and I managed to bowl Moin and win the series. What is the best bowled dismissal you have had? I still have this picture of sending Kamran Akmal's stump flying on the fourth day of the Rawalpindi Test. I bowled an incutter, he missed the line and the ball hit the stumps. We celebrate any time the ball rattles the wood but the beauty about this wicket was the stump flying over Kamran's head. To this day I get excited when I look at that picture. What kind of a batsman is the most difficult to bowl to? Someone who reads the bowler's strengths well and adjusts accordingly. Mahela Jayawardene is that kind of batsman. He will make you change your fields and has an advantage because he plays all the shots. If cricket has taught you one thing, what is it? You have to get up after you are knocked down. Even if you do not have the talent you need to be resilient. That has helped me stay strong each time I have been sidelined by injury or when I have been walloped for a lot of runs in an over. How do you relax? Once every year I go to a wildlife sanctuary, just to be in the middle of nature. It is an amazing experience. I am not interested in photography. I am more keen to just be there and relax. R Ashwin told us he is a huge Rajnikant fan. What about you? First-day first-show for a Rajni movie was a must for me as a schoolboy. Once, my friends and I tried to get into the first show of his movie Veera. We went to Rohini theatre in Chennai and saw thousands waiting outside. Luckily we had a friend who worked with a Rajni fan club. He managed to get us tickets and take us in. I still remember the first half hour of the movie: everything that Rajni did or said made the fans go berserk. It was such an electrifying experience and it still gives me goosebumps. Did you ever use Rajni lines to inspire your team-mates? Not really. But I use his words as an example whenever I am speaking to schoolkids. Rajni, along with APJ Abdul Kalam [former president of India] and AR Rahman [music composer] are three personalities from Tamil Nadu who have a wider reach and have inspired people not only in India but outside. What these three have taught is that it is not only the art you are involved in, but how you sustain yourself and how you take success and failure in your stride, and keep fighting and go for the bigger goal in life.

[suraj]

Past glory aath saal ho gaye get over it

[Sooda]

Those were heady days for Indian cricket, and he was fantastic along with Irfan on that tour, a key reason why we won... our pacemen really outbowled theirs.

[yoda]

JLD 04, glory days of Indian cricket. Sehwag, RD, SRT, Bala, Irfan all in full flow.

[The Dark Horse]

OK here's one better

If you take four international cricketers and put them into a college auditorium, packed to the rafters with teenaged boys and girls, the reaction is like dropping a nugget of sodium in water. "Balaji! Balaji! Balaji!" went the roars as members of the Indian team trooped into the Lahore University of Management Studies, or LUMS as it is popularly referred to in these parts. Rahul Dravid, Irfan Pathan, Parthiv Patel and Lakshmipathy Balaji were overwhelmed. Founded in 1985, LUMS is probably the best college in Lahore. Although not steeped in history and tradition like the Government College, once one of the leading colleges in undivided India, LUMS is state of the art, well designed, and has the casual air of any college campus you might see in the west. Its red-brick theme goes well with the manicured gardens, large courtyards and high-roofed corridors. LUMS is a bit of a misnomer, as it has long ceased to be an exclusive management school. But when the Indian players stepped into the campus, it ceased to be a centre for higher learning. It became a heaving, caterwauling, cat-calling, whistling theatre of dreams where kids got a chance to come face to face with celebrities. "I was this close to Balaji," said an excited Sajeda to her equally keyed-up friend, indicating the distance with the span of her trembling hand. Balaji? Surely you mean Sachin Tendulkar? Or Shah Rukh Khan? If Umar Gul was the surprise package with the ball, Balaji has been the shocker in the popularity charts on this tour. But why, we asked, and the answers were predictably barmy. "His name is so sweet. You see, we use ji as a form of respect, like Inzamam ji or Yousuf ji. With Balaji you don't have to, it's already there," said one of the seniors in the college. Another put it down to the fact that the syllables in the name Ba-la-ji lend themselves more effortlessly to chanting than most others. And then there's that six he hit off Shoaib Akhtar. There's a growing irritation among the younger generation of Pakistanis with Shoaib's repeated mouthing off. So, when Balaji, the unlikeliest of heroes, clattered Shoaib high into the stands, it fulfilled the ambition of a generation. "I must tell you I've never even hit a six in Ranji Trophy or first-class cricket," said Balaji, sending the crowd into further excitable chanting. But the evening was not all about Balaji. There was the elder statesman, Dravid, confirming journalists' belief that he has a long and distinguished career in the diplomatic corps waiting for him if he wants it, when he hangs up his batting gloves. "Coming here reminds me of the time I was in college. We used to sit around in the auditoriums and make a racket every time someone came to speak to us. I can now tell you for sure, it's more fun being on the side you are," he said from the podium, and in one stroke won over the whole audience. Dravid, Ratnakar Shetty - the manager who still teaches Chemistry in Mumbai's Wilson College - Pathan, Patel and Rameez Raja fielded questions of all sorts from the audience. Questions came from children - some so small they had to be held up by their parents - young and old men, and young women dressed in everything from Burqas to clothes that left little to the imagination. "I have always found it hard to understand the preconceived notions against India," said Dravid, when asked about how his impressions of Pakistan had changed since he arrived here. "I am still asked, 'Do you have snake-charmers on the road? How do you speak such good English?' I did not come with preconceived notions. I told myself I would come with an open mind and I have liked what I have seen and experienced." There was more. "Where the hell is Sachin Tendulkar?" yelled one student. "Preparing to score a double-century in the next match," said Dravid with a smile that brought a huge cheer. But the biggest cheer went up when Balaji was asked what he liked best about Pakistan. "The girls here are really pretty," he said, and that pretty much brought the house down. What the interaction was aimed at achieving, one is not quite clear about. But no group of students would have been allowed to behave in such an unshackled and unrestrained manner in India. Professors would have brooded over their wards, vetting every question that was asked, and similar figures of authority would have patrolled the aisles, making sure that decorum was maintained. But how deep an interaction can you have in half an hour of chit-chat? How much can you learn about another country by asking questions of four sportsmen? At least this way everyone had a grand time, and even the quietest of cricketers left feeling like an international hero.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/134307.html

[The Outsider]

Damn! I remember I spent $300 on Dish Network as a graduate student to watch this series. :((

[MUMBAISKIPPER]

Balaji kept smiling on that tour.....he could have got Pakistani toothpaste endorsements as well