London, July 30:
Ajit Agarkar is
hoping his brilliant century in India's second innings of the
first Test against England yesterday is the beginning of a new
and better phase in his cricketing career.
Agakar, who hit a
confident unbeaten 109 for his maiden Test hundred in India's
170-run loss, said the innings will help in stopping people from
discussing his unharnessed batting talent in the past.
"I hope it is the start
of something better and I am able to contribute in similar
fashion more regularly," Agarkar said in an interview today.
"I also hope this ends
all talks of the past," he said referring to his inglorious
world record sequence of no-scores against Australia.
Agarkar failed to score
in five consecutive innings against Australia in the 2000-01
series Down Under, getting out off the first ball on four of
those occasions. When Australia came on a return tour to India
last year, he added two more noughts.
That earned him the
dubious title of 'Bombay Duck' and severely dented his claims
for being an all-rounder.
But his knock yesterday
was good enough to put an end to all doubts whether he can bat
as he almost doubled his career aggregate Test runs of 125
before this match.
What was remarkable
about Agarkar's innings was the ease and confidence with which
he batted. An analysis of his innings by Wisden later showed
that as much as 77 per cent of his shots went exactly where they
were intended to be hit.
That was the highest
percentage of sure play by any batsman in this Test match
including the three centurions for England - Nasser Hussain,
Michael Vaughan and John Crawley - and the Indian batting
superstars Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and V V S Laxman.
Indeed, so supremely
confident was Agarkar of himself that he had also started
entertaining hopes of batting through the day as long as Laxman
was with him at the crease.
"Probably, if Laxman
had stayed put and we had gone to lunch without losing any
further wicket, we could have drawn the game," Agarkar said.
It is a tall assertion
by any means but looking at the way in which he batted
yesterday, it is very difficult not to believe the wiry Mumbai
all-rounder.
Agarkar and Laxman put
on 126 runs for the seventh wicket after India had collapsed to
170 for six while chasing a mammoth total of 567. But Laxman,
who made a sparkling 74, was dismissed when he drove uppishly to
be caught at point.
Agarkar was rueing that
dismissal even today, saying had Laxman been around anything was
possible. "You could see their bowlers were tired and they had
difficulty in getting out even the tailenders of our team," he
said.
And just to stress the
point that his teammates also believed in his ability to bat,
Agarkar said at no stage during the partnership did Laxman try
to shieled him from the bowlers.
"When you have to last
out the 120 overs of the innings, these things are farthest from
your mind," Agarkar said.
"Initally I was only
content with giving him the strike and hanging around which
might have given the impression he was shielding me.
"But there was no
conscious effort from Laxman or me to see that he takes the most
of the strike. We never spoke about it nor discussed it during
the innings."
Agarkar also gave full
credit to Ashish Nehra who hung in long enough to enable him to
reach his century. When Nehra came on to bat, Agarkar was
batting on 67 and a century hardly looked possible.
But Agarkar said he
never let negative thoughts cross his mind. "I knew he could bat
a bit. I remember a match between Bombay and Delhi where Nehra
batted the whole day. He was only out in the final over of the
day. Otherwise Delhi would have drawn that game."
Agarkar's knock has
come in for fulsome praise from all circles for his technique
and application. The great Sunil Gavaskar noted in his column
that the difference in Agarkar's innings yesterday was that he
never played across the line and there were no flourishes over
the top of mid-wicket which has caused his downfall on more than
one occasion.
