Former Australian cricketer Jason Gillespie is well known for his fast bowling and his impeccable ability to deliver in-swingers, out-swingers and his ability to reverse the older ball. However, despite all the abilities he possessed in his arsenal, he tried a different method to pick the wicket of VVS Laxman during the famous Kolkata Eden Gardens Test in the 2000/01 series, when the right-hander played a marathon 284-run knock. But what did he do?
Gillespie tried to flap his arms before delivering the ball to disturb the concentration of Laxman.
“Running into bowl in 2000/01 in Kolkata when Dravid and Laxman were scoring a stupid amount of runs against us, so I thought I would run in and flap my arms like a condor running into a ball to put VVS Laxman off,” Gillespie recalled in the Fast Bowling Cartel podcast. “I have done it, and then he (Laxman) puntbunted (played) it to the offside and ran through. He had this stupid grin on his face, and I’ve given him (shrugging) we have to try something, VVS.”
However, Gillespie was pulled aside by the umpire, asking him not to repeat such a thing. “I was actually told by the umpire later that you cannot actually do that because you will put the batsmen off, and then I thought, isn’t that the whole point. That’s the whole point of being a fast bowler, so I can put him out,” said Gillespie in a joival tone.
“So that means batters are not allowed to move around the crease because it puts the bowler off,” another former fast bowling great, Glenn McGrath chimmed in.
McGrath would also pick up his top five batters later in the episode and have Laxman among them, recalling his marathon partnership with Rahul Dravid from the same Kolkata Test. “That innings on pitch that was turning to hit Warnie(Shane Warne) out of rough that day…that’s turning square, he basically just shimmied around, just lifted it like a straight drive over mid-wicket, he was unstoppable. He was very wristy and had a great eye,” McGrath said.