Veteran wrist-spinner Amit Mishra, who recently retired from all forms of cricket, looked back on a funny moment from his early days with the Indian team. Mishra, who made his international debut in 2003 against South Africa in Dhaka, recalled a lighthearted exchange with legendary pacer Javagal Srinath. Speaking in an exclusive interview with RevSportz, Mishra revealed how Srinath jokingly referred to him as a “desi boy.”

“Srinath was very helpful to me. I remember this one time when I entered the team, Srinath told me in his broken Hindi, ‘Aa gaya bhai desi chore. Laya kuch hamare liye? Ghee wagera (The desi boy has come. Got something for us? Like ghee).’ Everyone was very good to me,” Mishra recalled with a laugh. During his early years, he shared the dressing room with icons like Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, and Sourav Ganguly.

When reflecting on his three-decade-long career, Mishra thanked seniors and captains for their support but also stated that he did not always get a fair deal being out of the team for long periods. Nevertheless, he still thanked his seniors and captains, with special mention of Sachin Tendulkar, who used to guide me on whistle while doing practice sessions.

Sachin’s guidance during The Oval stand

One of Mishra’s most memorable batting moments came during the fourth Test against England at The Oval in 2011. Promoted to number five as a nightwatchman, he joined Tendulkar at the crease with India struggling at 118/3. The pair went on to share an 84-run partnership, with Mishra scoring a career-best 84 off 141 balls while Tendulkar fell for 91. “First day went by and I was not out, and the second day, I went to Sachin Paaji and asked him how I was doing. He replied, saying: ‘Just play your normal game, normal shots, don’t think too much about what match it is or who is bowling to you… Just play it like you are playing domestic.’ So I followed his words and once the game started, he himself told me that he could see the confidence in me,” Mishra said.

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“It was before lunch or maybe after that he again suggested something to me, and that was to take singles and doubles and not play shots against the spinners. The partnership started building and his guidance in between helped me the most,” he added. Mishra’s 84 remains the highest score by a nightwatchman for India in Test cricket. Across his career, he notched four Test half-centuries and an unbeaten double century in first-class cricket, alongside 17 fifties.