Playing It My Way: My Autobiography Read Online Free PDF

as much as batting. After the match I’d resume my own training in the evening before calling it a day at 7.30.
    On days when there was a school match, we’d try our best to stretch it to a second day. For example, if we were set to chase 300 we’d score 260–270 runs on the first day and keep the remaining runs for the next morning. This would allow us to miss school on the second day, and after quickly wrapping up the match in the first half an hour, the team would head off to the beach to play cricket. Playing beach cricket was always a lot of fun and we would all have a great time.
    Both my parents would visit me at my uncle and aunt’s almost every day after they finished work. For my mother in particular it was an arduous journey, since travelling there from her office in Santa Cruz in peak-hour traffic on public transport was a real challenge back then. The fact that both of them would happily put in the time after a full day’s work, just so I would not feel neglected, was remarkable.
    In the 1986–87 season I started to make runs consistently and also scored my first hundred. We were playing Don Bosco School at Shivaji Park and I was not out on 94 at the end of the first day. A few days before this match I had invited Sir to my house for dinner. Sir, however, said he would come only when I had scored my first hundred in school cricket. Feeling excited and anxious, I decided to sleep with my father that night and kept tossing and turning till late. My father tried to comfort me, saying I should go to sleep and that my body needed rest after batting all day. I couldn’t and only managed to get a couple of hours’ sleep before waking up very early the next morning.
    Sensing my anxiety, my father took me to a Ganapati temple in Bandra to seek the blessings of Lord Ganesha and only then did I leave for Shivaji Park. On my way I visited another Ganapati temple, the one I regularly visited before games. There was a water tap inside the temple premises and I regularly used to drink from it before I went to the ground. I did the same that day and in the very first over hit two boundaries to reach my hundred. True to his word, Sir came for dinner that night and it was a deeply satisfying moment.
    One of my best early seasons was at Shardashram in 1987–88, when I played in both the Giles Shield and the Harris Shield. For those unfamiliar with the intricacies of Mumbai cricket, the Giles Shield is meant for boys under the age of fourteen and Harris Shield for those under sixteen. Looking back, it seems remarkable that I played in both, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. These tournaments are acknowledged as breeding grounds for young talent in Mumbai and good performances tend to get noticed in the city’s cricket circles.
    In the Harris Shield that season I scored a record 1,025 runs in five matches and was out only once. It now seems extraordinary, but my scores in the quarter-final, semi-final and final read 207 not out, 326 not out and 346 not out. What’s more, after scoring 326 not out in the semi-final of the Harris Shield, I walked right across the Azad maidan (recreation ground) to the other side to play in a Giles Shield match, in which I made 178 not out, winning us the game.
    I started out with a hundred in the first match of the season, scoring 125 before getting out, and it was a dismissal I have never forgotten. I was out stumped to an off-spinner who was hearing-impaired and I vividly remember the expression on his face when I was beaten by a beautifully flighted delivery. But the ball went on to elude the keeper and within a fraction of a second the bowler’s expression turned from euphoria to despair as he saw the missed stumping opportunity. Yet I did not go back to the crease and instead started walking back to the pavilion, allowing the wicketkeeper to complete the stumping. It was the only time I was out in that season’s competition. While I didn’t consciously mean to show