Interview with Manoj Tiwary: "If opportunity comes, I am ready for it"

Hanging on to the IPL, and I am going back to 2008 and 2009, since you are talking about the idea of the Indian Premier League and why it started. If you see these two seasons in which you missed out – 2009, being the year you were out injured and 2008, being when you didn’t get enough chances. In these two seasons, two players who are now part of the core of the Indian team, Suresh Raina & Rohit Sharma, stood out. Do you think that’s where you lost out? Had you got the same number of chances that Rohit got at Hyderabad, or Raina got at Chennai, would we have seen a different Manoj Tiwary today?

True. Definitely, it’s about opportunity. Talent and hard-work without opportunities can’t take you anywhere. If a player doesn’t get enough chances, and someone loses confidence in him after looking at one or two failures, it’s completely wrong. I think the team management and coaches need to build confidence in a player. If someone is not performing well or is under-confident, the coaches have to do their bit to make him feel like a good batsman. I missed out on this kind of backing.

At the same time, I don’t think that the IPL is everything for me. I give equal importance to our domestic season. IPL should not be a benchmark for selection into the Indian team.

Manoj Tiwary in action for India A against England in 2012

In fact, Manoj, this is something that Gautam Gambhir also spoke of recently. Where he said that it’s hard to judge a youngster’s technique by seeing him bat short durations in the IPL. At the same time, Gambhir agreed that the IPL helps in acclimatizing youngsters with the pressures of international cricket.

Catching on to what you say about domestic cricket, Manoj, you have had a fabulous nine years in the Indian domestic circuit. In your debut Ranji season in 2006, you averaged nearly a hundred, starting from there to 2014, where you were amongst the top run getters in the Deodhar Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy. Keeping all these achievements in mind, why do you think you have never got a longer run in the Indian team?

[Laughs] It’s very difficult for me to answer this, as I don’t know why I didn’t [get a longer run]. Saying that, I would love to get an extended opportunity – I still believe in myself to make a comeback and play for India, in the years to come.

When you first came into the Indian team, you made your forgetful debut at Brisbane, jetlagged, you got bowled by a Brett Lee yorker. You waited for three years to get your second chance, in the West Indies, where you were made to open in two of the five games. Then you flew to England, as Rohit’s replacement, and played just one game. When England came to India, again, you got just a dead-rubber game to play in. I think the West Indies series that followed was a big break for you, the one game in Chennai where Sehwag sat out, in order to let you play. The conditions were difficult, but you ended up scoring a century. Take us through that knock…

I am very thankful to Virender Sehwag for giving me that opportunity. He was the captain in that series, and as the series was won, he wanted the reserve players to get a chance to play. Not only did he want them to play, but also ensured that they got their usual places to bat at. It was very nice of him to do that. Gestures such as these, add to the confidence of youngsters.

I believe God helped me during that innings for all the hard work I had put in previously. In that game, India lost two wickets quite early, and when I went out to bat I didn’t have anything on my mind to think about. When a partnership goes on, and you sit and wait for your turn to come, you tend to over analyze and think about unnecessary things. Luckily that didn’t happen in that game and I didn’t have any baggage when I took guard. My blank mind allowed me to do well, as I played on the merit of each ball and stitched a partnership with Virat [Kohli].

At the score of 83, I started cramping due to the harsh conditions and I thought of retiring and then coming out to bat later. Almost immediately, I realized that I might not get a chance to bat again, and thought of making the most out of this opportunity. So I hung around and finished my century, and added those 20-odd runs for my team.

Manoj Tiwary, Virender Sehwag and Irfan Pathan celebrate a Sri Lankan wicket in 2012

I believe that Virender Sehwag has been one of your biggest supporters, ever since you made your IPL debut under him. What is the kind of relationship that you share with him?

He is always there to help, always there to give suggestion and advice about what to do and what not to do. He’s such a great person, a rarity these days. Extremely honest and upfront, he will say nothing behind your back and has a very nice heart. He was a great senior to a lot of youngsters, and not just me. I remember, Shabaz Nadeem speaking fondly about his experience of playing with Viru bhai in Delhi for five years. The kind of freedom Sehwag gives to his players is very helpful.

After that series, you were all geared up for Australia. You had scored a couple of centuries in First-class cricket, and were training to tackle the pace and bounce of Australian pitches. What happened after you went to Australia? You got benched for fourteen-fifteen games, all throughout the CB Series and Asia Cup. MS Dhoni came on air and said that you would get your chance, but Rohit was too good a talent to sit out. Do you think that the Indian team management was unfair to you back then? Where else will a player be benched after scoring a century?

I don’t know. I had no clue at all. The only thing I was thinking was that after scoring that century at Chepauk, I would get a few games. And initially when the batsmen weren’t doing well in Australia, [missing out] came as a shock to me. I didn’t play a single game in the entire series, and there were no reasons that were communicated to me. In the absence of communication, I had no clue why I wasn’t playing. I had to take it in my stride – the positive was that I was there in the Indian team right throughout that period, till the World T20 in Sri Lanka. The only sadness though is that, I didn’t get much chance, even though the Indian middle-order wasn’t performing well.

So when I see my contemporaries playing for India, I often ask myself, what went wrong? I was fully committed, gave my hundred percent, be it while serving drinks or while practicing. One will never know what a few opportunities could have done for me, as around that time, my confidence was sky high. That hundred against West Indies told me that I belonged in international cricket.