S Sreesanth Opens Up On His Antics During A Tussle With Andre Nel

S Sreesanth, former Indian fast bowler, may have had his career curtailed due to the 2013 Indian Premier League ‘spot-fixing’ scandal, but the Kerala bolter did have a plethora of glory moments during his career.

Sreesanth was a feisty character. He was someone who was at his best when his feathers were ruffled by the opposition. And, we saw that to the hilt during the 2006 India tour of South Africa.

The former fast bowler, in a recent Instagram Live session with Sportskeeda, went down memory lane and reminisced two incidents from that tour.

The first incident involved former South African batsman Jacques Rudolph, who, in the lead-up to the practice game against India, had termed Sreesanth as ‘overrated’, and someone who South Africa didn’t consider as a ‘fast bowler’

“We had gone to South Africa in 2006. We were playing in Potchefstroom against a team captained by Jacques Rudolph. When he was asked about Sreesanth, he claimed to not know me. He also said that they do not consider me a fast bowler since I was ‘too slow’, and that I was overrated and wouldn’t make a difference in the series. History is going to repeat in the sense that India will come here and lose,” Sreesanth told Sportskeeda.

S Sreesanth, eventually had the last laugh, as he went on to dismiss Rudolph for back-to-back golden ducks in the practice game.

“The next day, I got him with my first ball. Then he got out first ball in the second innings. Three years later, when I was playing for Warwickshire, he was the Yorkshire captain. We were joking around but I got him out first ball once,” he added.

Also Read: S Sreesanth: Want To Win 2023 World Cup With India, Then Retire

“It was some momentary madness” S Sreesanth on dancing in front of Andre Nel after hitting him for a six

The second incident was, of-course, with fast bowler Andre Nel, whom Sreesanth had charged down the track for a huge six before proceeding to put on his dancing shoes, much to the amusement of the onlookers. Terming it as ‘momentary madness’, Sreesanth reckoned that it all happened in the heat of the moment after he was left infuriated by Nel’s constant charter that ‘Indians don’t have a heart’

“Andre Nel was talking a lot. He kept saying that Indians don’t have a heart and that they (South Africa) were the better team. I wanted to tell him to look at the scoreboard once, we had the upper hand. I had gotten out for a duck in the first innings, and a lot of our better batsmen hadn’t scored too many runs that day,” S Sreesanth recalled.

“It was some momentary madness. I had that memory of Dada (Sourav Ganguly) flinging his shirt over his head after the Natwest Trophy final in 2002. I basically replicated the action of taming a wild horse with the bat. I didn’t get out to Nel in that entire series. I even hit him for three boundaries in Durban but I didn’t dance there,” S Sreesanth fondly remembers.

That incident happened during that historic Johannesburg Test, where S Sreesanth wracked havoc on the South African batting-unit to lay the cornerstone for India’s first-ever Test win in the rainbow nation.

Also Read: Sreesanth Blames Rajasthan Royals’ Team Management For Not Letting Him Play Against CSK