bowling according to him every ball is catchable or stoppable i was fortunate because i was too good to be standing at forward short leg or slip i was usually at either midon or midoff rahul would be positioned at first slip i remember an incident from south africa rahul was at first slip it is a righthand lefthand combination the righthand batsman has taken a single and the striker has changed rahul is in his own world and still standing in the leg slipanil goes back to his mark and see rahul and says jam ellaiah iddiya ninu baraiah e kade where are you standing jam come this sidethis was a good opportunity for venky and me to have a go at rahul at the end of the over we would go and say baiskoa baiskoa baiskoa he has got yelled at and rub it in if i misfielded something more than anil shouting at us i would dread venky or rahul coming up to me and saying baiskondiya baiskobaisko you deserve the scoldingvvs when sri misfielded off anil he wouldnt look at anil he would look at the crowd instead srinath but i think in my era there were a few catches dropped people do drop catches i had tremendous confidence in laxman and rahul he was exemplary even if he dropped catches i never said a word to him rahul was the best forward shortleg fielder he didnt like it he thought he was senior but he was junior to me for a long time and i always wanted him at forward shortleg when i was bowling laxman sharing the room with kumble during the perfect 10 srinath that room mustve have been silent there probably was only a 1 mb worth of data spoken each dayvvs anil was a fantastic roomie i dont know about you srinath but he was normal with me kumble can anybody be allowed to speak when sri is around no chance being a part of the perfect 10vvs it was the fourth day and at lunch we were a little concerned because we had lost a test and it was important to break that partnership like everyone knows anil created history after lunch rahul was a senior by then so was at slips and i was at forward shortleg nine wickets down wasim akram batting and anil kumble batting i told myself laxman you cant afford to drop that catch im disappointed no one talks about how good or sharp that catch wasanil i keep talking about it laxman vvs there was something funny that happened before the perfect 10 sadagoppan ramesh too knew he had to go and take the catch because it was off anils bowling just that he forgot it wasnt anil but sri bowling srinath was shouting dont catch dont catch on catching vegetarian fans abroadkumble west indies would be a challenge two bowlers would be on the boundary one would be srinath he would have figured