Mohammad Kaif believes that he entered the longest format at a very early age. When he tried to make a comeback, the selectors moved on. He recalled his career and told that it was not easy to face ‘that kind of pace’ in those early days.
Kaif explains his Test career
Mohammad Kaif’s heroics with Yuvraj Singh to help India win the 2002 Natwest Series is well known. That very particular win was one of the remarkable ones to have changed the dimension of Indian cricket under the able captaincy of Sourav Ganguly. But the young talented duo could not feature many Test matches for India. Recalling those days, Kaif said in a recent interview, “The Indian team at that time was full of big players like Sachin, Dravid, Sehwag. So I and Yuvraj could not play many Tests, even though Yuvraj got more chances than me. I got a chance to play against England in Nagpur (in 2006) when someone got injured and I scored 91. Then that guy got fit and I was dropped again. So that team was so strong that I didn’t get many chances to play. They were the greats of the game, legends, players like Sachin, Dravid, inspired us.” Kaif said.
Hurried into Test
He explained how surprising the Test call was for him. “I was surprised at the Test call-up. Since it was India’s first Under-19 World Cup title victory, there was a lot of media hype. There was a Challenger tournament in which most of the Under-19 players got a chance to play. I had two scores in the 90s in back-to-back matches that I played, then I was named in the Indian Test side.”
Kaif believes, “But I think I was hurried into Test cricket, I was just 20 and to face someone like Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Nantie Hayward, they had some serious pace. It was a learning experience for me, just like a new swimmer is thrown into the deep and asked to help himself.”
He concluded that he was not ready to face that kind of pace which did make a huge difference. Later he tried to comeback but prepared for the same but by then the selectors decided to move on. “I came back hard, I came back prepared after playing some domestic matches. I think sometimes selectors tend to rush with young players based on the name and the hype and seeing the Indian team losing, a new player is thrown into international cricket and sometimes it does more harm than good.”
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