Ferguson: Paparazzi and after-party like never before, and the Indian fandom

In this new Cricbuzz series - The IPL Benchwarmers - we talk to players who made it to the IPL alright, but didn't go very far, and were out of opportunities - and reckoning - sooner than they'd have liked.

Callum Ferguson (pointing at a journalist):Mate, he's bleeding from his mouth!

Media coordinator: No, no it's just tambaku

Ferguson:What? No, no I can see blood

Media coordinator: No sir, that's just tambaku. Don't worry!

Callum Ferguson still sounds a tad frazzled by his rude introduction to tambaku paan (tobacco wrapped inside a betel leaf). The scene is from one of the first-ever press conferences in the then newly-built cricket stadium in Pune (Gahunje). The stage was the Australian's second IPL season with the now-defunct Pune Warriors India franchise. And Ferguson had spotted a familiar-looking red liquid slowly slide down the side of the mouth of the local journalist who'd just asked him a question. And nearly a decade later, he's still a tad perplexed about why he was the only person in that room with any concern for the man's well-being.

"I wasn't sure what it was. I had noticed people with red teeth but never asked about it. That was the first time I reacted. It was pretty funny. What is it? Does it give you a kick like caffeine?" he asks now during his chat with Cricbuzz. And Ferguson sounds amused when informed that it's more a high really than a kick that most tambaku users are looking for. He recounts it as one of the many "eye-opening" experiences of his two-year IPL stint, which despite the right-hander not getting much play time, was incidentally filled with many "highs". Or as Ferguson puts it, "finding yourself in situations that you wouldn't otherwise imagine."

The first of which came on his first-ever night in India for the IPL. Ferguson and fellow Aussie recruit Tim Paine had missed Pune's first two matches of the tournament since they'd been away in Bangladesh for an ODI series with the Australian team. The Warriors had by then won their first two games so convincingly that Ferguson thought "we're going to win this bloody tournament". Ironically the two Aussies reached Mumbai, where the new franchise was based that first season, on the day Pune ended up losing for the first time.

"We flew in and we got to the ground (DY Patil Stadium) about halfway through the game. And we thought we were going to win that game as well, but we didn't. We just met the rest of the squad after the game on the ground," he says. The Warriors had posted 187-5 with skipper Yuvraj Singh smashing 66 off 32 balls and kept the Delhi Daredevils at bay before a late assault from Aaron Finch and Venugopal Rao had helped them get over the line. And as the players got off the bus outside the Trident hotel at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai's east, Ferguson recalls the entire team being asked to show up on Level 3 "dressed smartly".

"A few of the guys were worried that we were going to cop a spray from the chairman and the owners. We'd got ourselves looking reasonably sharp and presentable. The lift doors opened, and we had cameras in our face, asking us what we were wearing, what's the brand of your watch, and we didn't know what had hit us. Painey said the paparazzi had come for him. There was a full-blown cat-walk and fashion show and a cast of thousand everywhere. That was quite the party, that too on our first night of the IPL," he says.

Ferguson and Paine had sat in the same room a few months earlier watching the biggest IPL auction of that era with the number of teams having grown to 10. It was during a period when Ferguson was trying to re-cement his place in the national ODI team. He'd missed nearly 12 months of international cricket after blowing his knee out during the 2009 Champions Trophy final - he'd played 25 ODIs for Australia that same year. A decent showing in the Champions League in 2010 had meant that he had a very good chance to get an IPL offer. It was Paine though, by then a regular in the ODI setup, who seemed likelier to get in. The real story though was happening down the hallway where Daniel Christian sat in his room and watched Deccan Chargers bring him on board for $900,000-the most expensive foreign buy that year.

"We were really quickly in his room. You couldn't wipe the smile off his face and to be honest our faces either. It was a pretty big deal to all of us. Painey was and is a very talented white-ball player. The only surprise was being picked up for the same team. But we both knew Geoff Marsh (Pune coach) really well through his boys. Both of us had gone to the Academy with Shaun," he says.

While Paine broke into the playing XI right away, Ferguson had to wait his turn. And he got used to the often-rotating door nature of IPL team selection, especially on one occasion when he wasn't sure if he was playing or not till nearly after the toss.

"I was told in the team meeting I was playing and we then went to our rooms. When I was getting on to the bus, I was told I wasn't playing. I relaxed and started doing a running session when I got to the ground. Then at the toss, Geoff Marsh came to me in a bit of a panic and said, 'Fergie, you're playing. You're playing.' I quickly rushed to the change-room and Geoff came in and said, 'No, no it's alright you aren't playing.' It felt like I was on a rollercoaster," he says.

Ferguson though made the most of his time on the bench picking the brains of the senior players, including Yuvraj, Graeme Smith and Murali Kartik, rekindling friendships with those he'd played against at age-group level like Robin Uthappa and also getting to know some of the younger Indian players. "Manish Pandey and I got along well. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who I consider one of the loveliest men in cricket. Ashish Nehra and his wife had us over at his restaurant in Delhi, which was great. Graeme Smith took a bunch of us under his wing and we went to many of the fantastic restaurants in West Bandra."

The arrival of Sourav Ganguly in May as an injury replacement for Nehra as expected did change the dynamics of the team as Ferguson recalls. But while he couldn't help but notice the aura that the former Indian captain carried around him even to practice sessions-and his distinctly different style of leadership when he took over during the second season-all the Australian was looking for was to "chew Sourav's ear about manipulating the field". "He was an amazing gap-hitter and I wanted to learn about how he carved the ball through the off-side so well. It was surreal watching him around the young Indians though."

Ferguson eventually played his first game when Pune actually ended up bringing an end to their seven-match losing streak. They won the next one too when Ferguson finished the game off in style with three consecutive fours of statemate Christian.

Christian would get his own back just a week later in the return fixture in Navi Mumbai. But it's the morning after that game that Ferguson recalls fondly.

"Along with Dan, Darren Lehmann was the coach and Daniel Harris was playing as well. Quite a few South Australians. I just remember the games would finish so late. We were on the rooftop having some drinks and then it got to about 6 am and I ended up having breakfast with Kumar Sangakkara. It was a special experience," he recalls. Ferguson reveals to have not found "running on IPL time", as he calls it, too taxing and insists that the late nights suited him. They were according to him, "better than staring at walls or reading articles on the internet in my room".

Pune finished joint bottom in their first outing and didn't do too well in 2012 either, finishing in the same spot but with no other team for company this time. Ferguson only played 9 matches in all, never quite finding his feet. Much like the Warriors, who he believes had a squad that should ideally have been playing finals.

But the atmosphere and noise at the ground though still resonates in his head.

"I used to describe it to my friends like this. The entire crowd showed the enthusiasm for the game that a crowd of teenagers would show at a Justin Bieber concert or say Justin Timberlake back then. I remember going to the Eden Gardens, which was absolutely packed, and they just chanted 'Dada' all night," he recalls.

Ferguson was no stranger to India before his IPL gig. He had made 6-7 trips there as a young cricketer. But what he witnessed during his time with the Pune Warriors, he reveals, gave him a more rounded understanding of India as a country. It exposed him to the level of wealth and opulence that he'd never seen before.

"You talk a lot about the gap between the various socio-economic groups in India. But I'd never seen the upper class that closely in my previous trips. It was a real eye-opener. The JW Marriott in Pune then was as fancy a hotel as any in Australia now. Graeme Smith took us to an acquaintance's home in Mumbai one night for dinner. The guy owned a 6-7 storey place. Waiters waiting on us, and whatever you needed they'd cook on the spot. It was an extraordinary level of opulence."

Ferguson also got quite an understanding of just how fanatic Indians are about cricket, even encountering a teenage boy on the street who rattled off all his cricket stats. It led to him explaining the fandom to a friend thus: 'If Brad Pitt and Yuvraj Singh landed in Mumbai on the same flight, Brad Pitt would get to his car half-hour earlier than Yuvraj."

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