Stuart Binny, recalling his match-saving knock on Test debut for India, which came against England at Trent Bridge in 2014, revealed what MS Dhoni told him before going out to bat on the last day of the match.
After scoring just one run in the first innings of the first Test of India’s tour to England in 2014, Binny was thrust into the action with India 184-6 before lunch on the final day. Needing to bat out the day to draw the Test, Binny first added 65 runs with Ravindra Jadeja, then 91 with Bhuvneshwar Kumar before getting dismissed on 78.
The India all-rounder was directed by then-captain MS Dhoni to try and bat as long as possible to save the match, which at first he couldn’t quite digest but felt much at ease after spending some time out in the middle.
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“A special day in my life,” Binny told Sportskeeda, “to receive my Test cap #281 from Mahi bhai [Dhoni]. That Test match again didn’t go the way we wanted to. We were under the pump on the last day. I had scored 1 in the first innings, so obviously [I had] a sleepless night before that second innings when I walked in to bat.
“And Mahi bhai told me, ‘Listen, we need you to bat 4-5 hours to save the Test match’. And I looked at him like I can’t believe he said something like that to me, because I wasn’t even thinking clearly at that time. I was nervous, I was playing my first Test match and hadn’t got runs.
“I walked in, and I normally take a leg-stump guard, and I don’t know what I was thinking that I asked the umpire, ‘Can I have middle stump, please?’ Then I heard myself and [realised] I don’t take that guard. I was that nervous, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just walked around, and till I got the first 10 runs, my mind was so muddled, I wasn’t thinking clearly at all.
“Then the innings slowly built and gave me some confidence. I had batted close to two hours and I was batting on 36, [when] I knew that I definitely belonged at that stage.
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“It was 8-9 years of domestic cricket at that spot – either saving matches or trying to put a game on. It’s experience, I think, that got me through that day. I would have loved to have a Test hundred on debut but it didn’t work out that day. I’ll take a 78 any day of my life.”
India drew the first Test before they took a lead in the series by winning the next at Lord’s. However, the final three matches of the five-Test series went to the hosts, who sealed the series 3-1.
