Monty Panesar - Monty Panesar

Monty Panesar

The Full Monty

The Full Monty

Monty Panesar

with

Fred Atkins

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by

Pen & Sword White Owl

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright Monty Panesar, 2019

ISBN 978 1 52675 450 9

eISBN 978 1 52675 451 6

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52675 452 3

The right of Monty Panesar to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the Imprints of Pen & Sword Books Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Transport, True Crime, Fiction, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Seaforth Publishing, Wharncliffe and White Owl.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

E-mail:

Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

or

PEN AND SWORD BOOKS

1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

E-mail:

Website: www.penandswordbooks.com

C haracters in sport are hard to come by these days, but its fair to say that Monty Panesar is one of them. He was a dressing room and crowd favourite, not just because of his skills as a slow, left-arm bowler, but also because of his exuberance and love, both for the game and for life in general.

I had the pleasure of captaining Monty in his first Test in India and will never forget him taking the wicket of the great Sachin Tendulkar, his first in international cricket. Nor will I forget his celebrations afterwards!

He did cause me a few headaches, mainly when I was trying to position him in the field. It wasnt just a question of deciding where the ball wouldnt go: we also had to take into account his ability to wander 40 yards from where he was actually placed.

Ill never forget him dropping MS Dhoni in Mumbai when he was at long off and then, in the next over, taking a far harder catch in the same position effectively to win the match. This to me sums up Monty both as a player and a person. Hes a winner, someone wholl never shy away from a challenge, no matter how far outside his comfort zone he may be.

He has a steely determination which is hidden by a softer, friendlier exterior, as the Aussies found out in Cardiff in 2009.

This, to me, was Montys finest hour. Against all the odds, against an Aussie team sniffing victory, out strode the great man, playing every shot hed practised in the nets on the long walk to the middle. Ponting and his boys must have thought going 1-0 up was a certainty with 40 minutes still left to take the final wicket.

Im not going to lie. Sat on the balcony with the lads, wed resigned ourselves to our impending doom.

Not Monty.

To this day I believe he saw this as an opportunity to show off the hours of batting practice hed put in, but more importantly, he saw it as a chance to show the world that under the most extreme pressure, with the odds against him, he would prevail. And of course he did!

Ponting and his men were left moaning and whingeing about time wasting, while our hero and Jimmy Anderson were left to take the plaudits. The smile on his face as he came off is one Ill never forget.

Since those days I know Monty has had to overcome more difficult odds in his life outside cricket, but with his steady determination, winners mentality and that smile that Ill never get tired of seeing, no challenge is too great.

Thank you again for all your efforts on the cricket field and also for the chats in the dressing room and in bars about life and your faith; they made me think about how I live my own life and how I can try to be a better person.

Like the rest of the cricketing world, I have your back, always. And to anyone who has a problem with Monty, I can assure you its not him, its you!

Your mate,

Fred

T his is the story of an all-consuming ambition, of a glimpse of greatness preceding a descent into the dark, of paranoia, of fractured relationships, frayed friendships and one broken marriage.

Its a story of racism and overcoming it: the extreme form faced by my parents generation, the dog-whistle variety typified by Norman Tebbits cricket test and the unconscious bias that still affects British Asian cricketers.

It becomes story of hope, faith in humanity and ultimately, redemption, both personal and collective.

It was the integration of white English and immigrant Sikh communities that made it possible for a wide-eyed boy from Luton to briefly achieve his goal of becoming the best spin bowler in the world.

It was the love of my family, my fellow Sikhs and the cricket community that helped me to heal when the pressure I put on myself to regain that status almost crippled me with paranoia.

I think it would make a great biopic. Martin Scorsese could be the director and a handsome, young Bollywood actor would play the younger version of me before I take over the title role, as both the villain and the hero.

In the climactic final scenes Id tumble, like Alan Rickman falling backwards off a skyscraper in Die Hard , only to rise again like Christian Bale in Batman , emerging from the pit.

I wanted to write a feel-good book and I hope you find it uplifting to read. I want to send out a message of love, positivity and aspiration, because although it wasnt the life I expected to lead and things didnt always go to plan, in the great stories they never do.

Monty Panesar

Luton, 2019

I wanted to be famous for my cricketing prowess. In my daydreams I imagined playing in about 150 Test matches, beating Muralis record of 800 Test wickets and conjuring a ball of the millennium that would make Shane Warnes so-called ball of the century look like a rank long hop. I wanted to be The Greatest Spin Bowler in the World, but also, like Warney, I wanted to be respected for my specialist fielding skills and my match-turning batting cameos down the order.