VVS Laxman reveals he almost missed the historic Eden Gardens Test
VVS Laxman's autobiography, '281 and beyond' was launched by batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar in an event held in Mumbai on Thursday.
Laxman was joined on stage initially by his Under-19 coach Sandeep Patil, along with Dilip Vengsarkar, who was the selector when Laxman played at the Under-19 level. While Patil described him as a special and God-given talent, his former teammate Tendulkar described him as one of the nicest cricketers he has come across.
In an event hosted by renowned cricket expert Harsha Bhogle, Laxman shared many interesting anecdotes from his life and cricketing career. He mentioned how he almost enrolled himself into a medical college in Hyderabad before taking up a career in cricket and also shared how he felt when he when he was at the other end when Tendulkar batted, largely emphasising on the famous Desert Storm innings at Sharjah in 1998.
Laxman revealed that there were a couple of occasions when Tendulkar was furious with him after he turned down the single and one of them was during Tendulkar. Tendulkar scored a mammoth 131-ball 143, which helped India make it to the Sharjah Cup final and eventually clinch the title.
"Tendulkar was in the zone that day. He shouted at me because I refused to take a single," Laxman revealed. The best shot of Sachin's career was the front foot cover drive off Shane Warne, it seemed as though he was playing a tennis ball match. He recalled another incident in Bangalore when Laxman ran Tendulkar out after misjudging a run, after which Tendulkar was not particularly happy.
While talking about Laxman's best innings, Tendulkar revealed he had the best seat in the house when he saw the elegant batsman score 178 against Australia at Sydney. Tendulkar scored an unbeaten 241 in that innings and the duo added 353 runs for the fourth wicket at Sydney.
This was Laxman's second century at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG. He had scored 167 in 2000, opening the batting for India - An innings that Laxman admits gave him confidence that he can play at the international level.
Talking about that innings, Tendulkar said," Nobody knows where he is going to hit the ball except Laxman. He was dealing in boundaries and whether anyone was bowing at 80 MPH or 90 MPH, he negotiated them in the harshest manner possible."
Laxman and the numbers 281 have been synonyms ever since his heroic innings at the Eden Gardens against a strong Steve Waugh-led Australian side in 2001. Thanks to that innings and his 376-run partnership with Rahul Dravid, India became just the third team to win a Test after being asked to follow-on.
Throwing more light on that historic match, Laxman revealed that he almost did not play that match due to injury and it was Team India's physio who got him fit for that match. "I was not going to the play the Test match and Andrew (Leipus) made me fit to take the field. It was a great opportunity for myself to go and just play my natural game."
"That Test was important because I didn't make runs in the first Test match and as it turned out I played my natural game, played on the merit of the ball, didn't really think about what happened in the past or what's going to happen."
"Credit to Rahul the way he kept motivating me at the other end and playing such a fantastic knock. But that partnership with Rahul was so important," Laxman remembered.
Laxman in his illustrious career scored 8,781 runs from 134 Tests at an average of 45.97, which included 17 hundreds and 56 fifties. However, his ODI career did not reach similar highs. Laxman managed 2,338 runs from 86 ODIs at 30.76.