Hoggy: Welcome to My World. Matthew Hoggard

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      The winter after we won the championship with Yorkshire, I underwent something of a dramatic transformation as an international bowler. Without so much as playing another game for England, I went from being a novice who had only played two Tests to become the leader of England’s attack. Compared with Jimmy Ormond (one cap), Richard Johnson and Richard Dawson (both uncapped), I was a grizzled, gnarled veteran with the grand total of six Test wickets. We were supported by a couple of all-rounders in Andrew Flintoff and Craig White, but this was hardly an attack to make Sachin Tendulkar toss and turn at night.

      This was the tour that came shortly after the 9/11 terrorist atrocities in the US and Andrew Caddick and Robert Croft had opted not to tour. Alec Stewart and Darren Gough had already decided to take the winter off and Mike Atherton had just retired. As a result, we were huge underdogs, there was very little expected of us, but we scrapped and scrapped for everything, and did fairly well to restrict India to a 1-0 win in the three-Test series. Myself and Freddie both did our bit with the ball, and pride was certainly maintained.

      This was also the Test series when Phil Carrick’s prediction that VVS Laxman and I, both former team-mates at Pudsey Congs all those years ago, would play each other in a Test match came true. Seven years after he had made it, I was walking onto the outfield at Mohali to warm up for the first Test and I saw Lax having a net with the rest of the Indian lads at the other side of the ground. I looked up to the sky and said: ‘Who’d have thought it, Ferg? You were right.’

      Taking on the might of India with a group of spotty youths, we needed a strong and stern headmaster to guide us in the right direction. We had just the man in Mr Nasser Hussain, who did a great job in keeping order in the class. Not that I always saw eye-to-eye with him, and there were a few occasions when I thought I might end up getting the cane. At the end of that first Test in Mohali, we had a massive barney. Or rather, he had a massive barney at me.

      We’d been pretty much outplayed throughout that game and our batting had collapsed fairly meekly to 235 all out in the second innings, just avoiding an innings defeat. India then needed only five runs to win, so they opened the batting with Iqbal Siddiqui, a tail-end slogger who had batted at number ten in the first innings.

      Nasser didn’t like them doing this. I think he was fairly insulted. As I was opening the bowling, he told me to bounce Siddiqui and make them think twice about doing this sort of thing again. Even though they only wanted five to win, he wanted to show that we were still scrapping.

      So Muggins here thought: ‘Bollocks to that, I’m going to try to get him out.’ So I pitched the ball up outside off stump. It was quite a good ball, Siddiqui had a go at it and snicked it through the slips for four. Next ball he clipped one through the leg-side and it was game over.

      Back in the dressing-room, I got the biggest bollocking of my life. ‘If I tell you to bowl a f***ing bouncer, I want you to run in and bowl a f***ing bouncer!’ Nasser yelled in my face. ‘You don’t see f***ing McGrath and f***ing Ambrose coming in and bowling piddly half-volleys on leg stump.’ And so it went on. ‘F-this, F-that and F-the F***ing other.’ All of which basically amounted to me getting an almighty bollocking for failing to defend a TARGET OF FIVE.

      This happened in front of everybody else in the dressing-room and it made me really upset. When we had to go back out onto the field for the presentation ceremony, I was standing on my own with tears in my eyes. It was my third Test match and I’d just been given the rollicking of my life by the captain when I barely felt that I deserved it. I had people coming up to me and putting their arm round me telling me not to worry about it. But it was a bit late for that.

      A couple of hours later, back at the hotel, I was still seething in my room when there was a knock on the door. It was Duncan Fletcher, the coach. I hadn’t had much to do with Fletch up to this point, because he tended to keep himself to himself in the dressing-room and only intervene when he felt it necessary. He clearly felt it necessary this time and said: ‘Don’t take it personally. Nass was just really het up. You didn’t deserve it.’ Half an hour later there was another knock on the door. Nass walked in and gave me a cuddle, told me that he was sorry and walked out again.

      Fair enough. That was Nass. He was a very intense, very fiery character, but deep down he can be a really lovely, compassionate guy. When his emotions got the better of him, he could be a complete and utter twat, but I don’t think he ever meant badly. Nass was Nass.

      The first time I had encountered his temper had been on that first tour to Pakistan the previous winter. At one of the Test matches, I was one of three or four twelfth men who would take it in turns, session by session, to run errands out onto the field, while the other twelfth men stayed to look after the dressing-room.

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