Former Test spinner Steve O’Keefe has reminisced on the crowning moment of his international career.
O’Keefe, now 37, played nine Tests for Australia between 2014 and 2017, and his best moment undoubtably came against India in Pune in the 2017 Border-Gavaskar Series.
In that clash, O’Keefe took a miraculous 6/35 in both innings, finishing with overall figures of 12/70 as Australia ran away victors by a whopping 333 runs.
As a result, O’Keefe was named Man of The Match as Australia claimed their first win in India since 2004.
On top of that Pune Test proving to be the best performance of his career, it also included his personal favourite wicket, that of then captain Virat Kohli for 13 in the second innings.
O’Keefe detailed how things transpired as Kohli shouldered arms to a ball that went straight on and uprooted his off-stump.
“My most memorable (wicket) was probably Virat Kohli in India,” O’Keefe said on SEN 1170 The Run Home.
“I knocked him over, we were playing on this absolute dust bowl of a wicket, it was spinning and ragging sideways.
“It was an absolute tip of a wicket, junk. Ravi Shastri described the wicket of having dermatitis, it was that bad, it had holes in it.
“The Indian spinners came out in the first innings and were just spinning it wildly, going to second slip, bouncing off the middle – they were going everywhere.
“Then I went out and put less revs (on the ball) than the world does a day, and they’re just sliding on, I’m just getting LBWs with these non-turners.
“To top it off, Virat just lets this ball go, it pitches outside off, and I’m meant to be spinning the ball (away) towards first or second slip.
“This thing just continued on with the angle, I’m trying to spin it and it’s knocked out off-stump so I’m like, ‘You beauty!’.”
O’Keefe jokingly felt like he was on his way to having a massive tour before reality set in throughout the remaining matches as India claimed a 2-1 series victory.
“They gave me the ball at the end of that for a five-for,” O’Keefe said.
“I said, ‘Boys, I don’t want the ball, there’s no need to give it to me, if you’re going to keep giving me these balls after five-fors we won’t have anything left to train with’.
“That was after the first Test, but in the middle of the fourth Test when I had five more wickets at 300, I was asking, ‘Where’s that ball at?’.”