"Aaja, aaja, gale mil, after all we are in the mandatory overs of life" was the usual greeting of my opening partner Chetan Chauhan whenever we met over the last two or three years. The meetings were invariably at his beloved Ferozeshah Kotla ground where he was in charge of the pitch preparation. As we hugged I would say to him that, "no, no we must have another century partnership" and he would laugh and then say, "arre baba you are the century-maker, not me". Never in my wildest nightmares could I believe that his words about being in the mandatory overs of life would come true so soon. It's so hard to believe that his laughter and cheerful banter won't be there the next time I go to Delhi.

Talking of centuries, I firmly believe that I was responsible for him missing out on two occasions, both in Australia in the 1980-81 series Down Under. In the second Test in Adelaide, he was on 97 when my teammates pulled me out of my chair in front of the TV and dragged me to the players balcony, saying I must get there to cheer my partner. I was a bit superstitious about watching from the players enclosure as then the batsman would get out and so would always watch on the dressing room TV. Once the landmark was reached, then I would rush to the players balcony and join in the cheers. However, here I was in the Adelaide balcony when Dennis Lillee came in to bowl and would you believe, Chetan was caught behind first ball. I was livid and told the players off for having got me to the balcony but that wasn't going to change what had happened. A few years later, I didn't make the same mistake when Mohd Azharuddin was approaching his third consecutive hundred in Kanpur and as soon as he got to the coveted mark I was out of the change room and applauding him from next to the sightscreen. However, some of my friends in the media who had the knives out for me then made a big story of my so-called absence. Amazingly, they had had nothing to say about the absence of some when a year earlier, I got my 29th century to be level with Sir Don Bradman in Delhi.