Sehwag's debut in controversial game

Sometimes I get confused about which exactly should be treated as my first Ranji match. I made my first-class debut in Chennai, against Tamil Nadu, but didn't get to bat when the match was abandoned in controversial circumstances. So I had to wait till the next season to bat in a Ranji game for the first time, so I shall talk about both the matches.

Well, it was in January 1998 that I returned from playing the Under-19 World Cup and soon after coming back was selected for Delhi's Ranji Trophy Super League match against Tamil Nadu. Those days, Ranji Trophy used to be played on a zonal basis followed by a Super League. I had missed the North Zone league due to Under-19 camp so was excited to be making my Ranji Trophy debut, alongside some of the stalwarts who were up against quite a formidable Tamil Nadu team.

We fielded for one-and-a-half days. I bowled, I got one wicket - a prize scalp of WV Raman. He was well set, past his fifty and set for a trademark big hundred, so somebody told our captain why not bowl Virender Sehwag, he bowls decent offspin. Since the bowlers were tired, they too felt it would be a good idea to let me bowl five-six overs. He was batting on 60-odd runs, Ajay Sharma let me bowl with long-off and long-on in place. Raman took me on, hit over my head but it wasn't timed well and Mithun Manhas dived and took a good catch at long-on.

Then when we started batting and I was waiting for my turn. We were four or five down, I was padded up and then something happened. On the third evening, somebody tampered with the wicket and our captain Ajay Sharma and Mithun Manhas were batting. After that the Delhi captain refused to bat on. We complained against the Tamil Nadu team that they had tampered the pitch and because of that we were not going to play the remaining match.

As a youngster, I was only waiting for my turn to bat. I really didn't know what all was happening. I was sitting outside and I was talking to Mithun because he was my age and he told me there were footmarks on good-length area. He said the marks will help the offspinner, if he lands it there, he would be very difficult to face. I told him, "Why are you worried about an offspinner, just step out and hit a four or a six. Let's go out and play." He told me that it wasn't in his hands and the captain and coach would take the decision.

Unfortunately for me, Ajay Sharma and the coach, Maninder Singh Jaggi, refused to play the next morning. It was followed by the BCCI banning both the teams for the rest of the tournament, so we couldn't play any more matches that season.

My dream was still a dream, I couldn't bat in the game. I was still waiting to bat in first-class cricket. This happened in February and I had to wait till October or November for the next season to start to have a bat in Delhi's whites. I played the first game against Haryana. I was still batting at No. 7 and scored a hundred in my first innings.

What I remember is I batted with the tailenders Rahul Sanghvi, Amit Bhandari and Robin Singh. When Rahul Sanghvi got out as the eighth man, I was batting somewhere around 40 and when the last man, Robin Singh, came out to bat, I was somewhere around 60. He hung around and I didn't let him face many balls. Most of the time I was facing the balls and then taking a single off the last ball.

The Haryana bowling attack was pretty good, including Pradeep Jain, Vinit Jain and Pankaj Thakur. Ajay Jadeja couldn't play that game because he was playing ODIs. It was quite a decent attack. Since the last man was in, I was in a sort of hurry so I started playing more shots. I remember I hit a couple of sixes off Pradeep Jain and Thakur. And then Vinit Jain came and I finally completed my hundred.

It was as exciting as it could have been for any youngster to score a hundred in his first innings.