The Mohammad Kaif Story

Whether on the cricket field, or outside it - Mohammad Kaif is a package of energy. And his story springs with an appropriate theme, too. His team, Andhra, has just wrapped up day three of their Ranji Trophy game against Gujarat, with Kaif himself scoring a 215-ball 76 to help his side take a 113- run lead, and during our 40-minute phone call, he is still ebullient - he speaks freely, remembers vividly, laughs brightly, and forgives easily.

The Allahabad-born right-hander burst onto national fame by leading his side to glory in the 2000 U-19 World Cup. In the same year he made his Test debut against South Africa in Bangalore and soon after, his 79-ball 87 against England at the NatWest series final in 2002 propelled him to greater heights. All of 21 then, Kaif's career looked all set to take off and to the very top of international cricket. But, it wasn't meant to be. Less than four years later, he made his first, and only, Test hundred. (He had scored 91, 13 and 46* in the three innings that came before his hundred). Three failures followed, and he never played Tests for India again.

His ODI axing took a somewhat similar trail, too. Five consecutive failures after a string of three 50+ scores in four innings, and Kaif was rendered ineffectual. His last game for India came on November 29, 2006 - Three days short of his 26th birthday.

"It was tough," Kaif, who now captains Andhra in Ranji Trophy, reminisces. "I got my maiden Test century against West Indies, and then, I never played Tests again. That was very disappointing. I made my maiden Test hundred in one Test series, then the next, I'm not there. I can't understand why it happened. I spoke to Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, Greg Chappell and Dilip Vengsarkar - there were things that did not go according to plan."

"My job under John Wright was to keep the team going along. Run around, shout, keep the boys on their toes, etc. When I was doing it, we were playing well. And then, there was a change of management. There was a different mind-set. We started to lose. The whole atmosphere was not good. Not just me, everyone was finding it tough. The unity was shaken up. Probably, I got caught during the Ganguly-Chappell incidents. I was caught neither here nor there. It was a tough situation," he says.

These are scars that may take years to heal, but if there is profound sadness about his axing, Kaif does not make it too obvious. Perhaps he is now inured to cricketing disappointments. He was handed a debut against a vicious South African team and promptly dropped for series against Bangladesh, Zimbabwe (twice) and Australia. Kaif, though, looked at it as an opportunity to get better. He started to work on his back-foot game.

"I was a young cricketer, and suddenly I was playing Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener and Allan Donald. It was tough. It was also a moment where I was like 'Boss, you are not ready. You have to improve your game'. It was the time for soul searching," he says. "The drop probably helped me a lot to understand the game. I had played almost all my cricket in Kanpur (in Uttar Pradesh), where there was not that much bounce and it tends to keep low. But, when I faced all the top bowlers I came back with 'Boss, I have to change my approach'. I came back and started working on my back foot game - pulling and cutting. I was a more on-the-rise player, but at that level you can't always play like that. It'll get you out."

Now 34 years and 179 first-class games (the current one against Gujarat not included) old, Kaif still remembers his first match for Uttar Pradesh. "I was about 14 and it was for the Under-16 team. It was against Goa in Goa and I did not do well. Soon after, I went to England and played in the Lombard Cricket World Cup, where we beat Pakistan in the final."

His family, he says, is the main reason behind him taking up cricket as a career. Kaif's father, Mohammad Tarif, and elder brother, Mohammad Saif, have both played Ranji cricket for Uttar Pradesh. "My dad follows my scores even now," he says referring to the 76 he made in the Test. "My family has been supportive from the start. I started by playing local and league matches in Allahabad for around two-three years for my club team Top Gun, and then I moved to Kanpur."

In Kanpur, Kaif got to rub shoulders with the likes of Gyanendra Pandey, Rambabu Pal, Shashikant Khandkar - all of whom played for the state team - while staying at the Green Park Cricket hostel. Gradually, Kaif's abilities started to shine through and he was soon in the side, as an 18 year old, who travelled to South Africa to play the U-19 World Cup. "Playing in South Africa was a big thing, you know, just going outside India," he admits. "That's when I started to believe that if you can play well in South Africa or in England, then you can make a career for yourself."

His rising stocks concatenated his success and soon Kaif was India's first Under-19 World Cup-winning captain, and earmarked for greater things. While his Test career was still a work in progress, his ODI career reached its crescendo. The Natwest final against England is now synonymous with Kaif and Yuvraj Singh's awe-inspiring heroics that led to the most memorable of wins for India. His recollection of how things unfurled on July 13, 2002 at Lord's is vivid, to say the least.

"It was our ninth or tenth final, and we had lost everything before. So the team was not in a good space. There was something... not right. Also, chasing was not our strength back then. At that time, after Sachin Tendulkar's wicket, most teams would say, 'Yes, we can win this quite easily'," he laughs.

"But Ganguly made a very good point saying don't lose early wickets, and he showed that with the bat, too. It helped, because we could start believing again. We got the opening stand so the first part was done. But then, suddenly, we lost five wickets, which was not part of the plan (laughs). We thought 'Oh no. Here we go again'. Then it was up to us, Mohd. Kaif and Yuvraj Singh."

"In fact, when I was walking in, I thought the game was over. Outside the ropes, you believe that you have lost the game, but inside you are still believing 'No, no, hang on. Let's just take ones and twos and we'll see'. Then Yuvraj gets out. Then Bhajji (Harbhajan Singh) and Kumble, too.

"Till the very last over, it was tough to believe we would win. We needed two runs and Zak (Zaheer Khan) played a couple of dot balls. So I said 'Zak, I'm running now. I don't trust you anymore. You just hit the ball anywhere... I'm running.' I remember he did not hit it far from Paul Collingwood, but we ran..."

From the high of the Natwest series win, Team India crashed to defeats in New Zealand and then to Australia in the 2003 World Cup. Kaif's house, back in India, bore the brunt of the public's backlash. Although disappointed, he understands the fans' reactions. "I know the fans were disappointed. There are fans who get disappointed and can't take defeat. We have very passionate fans in India. It was just one of those days, you know. We were disappointed, but we moved on. We were trying our best out there."

A little more than three years later, Kaif would play his final Test, and soon his final international in India colours. Disturbed, as he was, he went back to scoring in heaps in the domestic circuit averaging at least 45 for the three seasons that followed his axing. He left his home state UP to play for a young Andhra team, captaining and mentoring the side. And his run-scoring habit still hasn't deserted him.

"I played for UP all my life. I needed to make the switch to keep things fresh, and to do something... new. I wanted to share my experience while doing something new, something fresh. Right now, I'm enjoying playing for Andhra. There are no big names, apart from me. These are all young guys. I see in their eyes, what they want to become. It is the same look I had when I was playing under-19," he says.

Mohammad Kaif was never earmarked to be the Olympian god of mortals, for that there was Yuvraj Singh. Kaif was never meant to be the cure, there were plenty who were more gifted than he was. Kaif was few bits here, few pieces there, but invariably anywhere the team needed him to be. He was captain when India under-19 won in 2000; saviour when they beat England two summers later; scapegoat when they were reeling in Centurion. Jolly when they needed to be kept on its toes. Did he get his due, though? Tough call...

Kaif doesn't care, mind. "I'm really enjoying the journey," he says with a laugh before signing off.