On this day: Australia, Pakistan and the Gulf Waugh

Australia's first Test experience in the United Arab Emirates came amid extreme heat in October 2002 when a scheduled tour to Pakistan was relocated for security reasons.

It followed a draining series of ODIs in Kenya and Sri Lanka and curiously saw the opening Test of the three-match series played in Colombo before the final two were programmed for Sharjah. With preparations for an imminent invasion of nearby Iraq underway and searing daytime temperatures approaching 50C, an air of tension hung over the tour as Steve Waugh begrudgingly granted a private audience following training on the eve of the first match in Sharjah in which he reflected on becoming the first Australian after Allan Border to reach 150 Test appearances.

"He said he'll do it for you," the Australian team manager growled sternly as I waited in the baking heat for confirmation of my loosely pre-arranged interview with the skipper. The first group of ruddy-faced Australian players had already begun pushing past me as they filed out of the stifling dressing rooms and hauled themselves aboard the team bus that waited with motor running and fans blasting.

"But only because you reckon he made a deal. And only for five minutes. He's in the rooms."

The manager motioned to the glass doors immediately behind him, and I charged headlong through the oncoming tide of lightly roasted players lest he suddenly change his mind. Past the litter of adhesive strapping, piles of painkilling and salt tablets, massage benches, sopping towels, insulated tubs in which sports drinks would be mass mixed, makeshift plastic-lined ice baths, mounds of cricket equipment and a carpet of discarded water bottles.

Then, hunched forward on a plastic chair in a dark corner, I found Stephen Waugh. Sitting in solitude beneath the hem of his candy-striped team blazer that hung from a bare hook on the white plaster wall. In his shorts, training shirt, thick woollen cricket socks and ever-present sponsor's cap, he was sweating like a defendant in a murder trial.

"The bus is ready to go," I said by way of greeting, clumsily trying to lighten his mood that was as patently gloomy as his surrounds. "You're gunna be unpopular."

He looked briefly up at me and then back to the new, blue rubber grip he was diligently unrolling over the handle of one of his prized MRF bats.

"Nah, mate," he said, implacably. 'They'll know why I've stayed behind. And if it goes longer than a few minutes, you'll be unpopular."

When it came to media relations, Waugh was strictly a front-foot player.

With half an eye on my watch, we rattled through most of the questions I had painstakingly prepared, and he fired off a series of answers that were nowhere near as rehearsed. Asked to nominate who he believed was best qualified to follow him as Test captain, he could easily have deflected such obvious speculation by pointing out that he had no say in choosing his replacement, or even when that handover would take place. But shirking wasn't in his nature.

"I think Ricky's got the stomach for the job," he said, after pausing momentarily and studying the bat that twisted in his hands while he framed his words.

"You have to want this job, embrace it, and take it on because it's not always going to be easy. But he's a tough sort of character, and I think he can handle what it throws at you."

He also articulated his plans for life after cricket: "I won't stand back and wait for somebody to hand me a job." His thoughts on reaching 150 Tests: "The greatest thing about a longevity milestone is you've obviously got through and dealt with adversity, which says a lot about a sportsperson."

And the legacy of his tenure as captain: "More people are watching Test match cricket now, which I think is a direct result of how Australian sides have played over the last few years. We've played very aggressively and gone all out to win … so if that's the legacy this Australian cricket side leaves, then I'd be very happy to say I was part of that."

In six minutes and 48 seconds, he delivered more interesting material than many of his contemporaries managed in their entire careers. No sooner had I snapped off my voice recorder and thanked him for honouring his word than he leaned the bat carefully against the wall, slung a grey day pack over his shoulder, and stalked off towards the idling bus.

"This weather's bullshit," he muttered to nobody in particular, even though I was the only one left in the room.

"Buggered if I know what we're doing here." He lazily kicked at a ball of spent sticking plasters on the floor, and was gone.

***

THE STOMACH and the steel extolled by the captain were called on from the moment he lost the coin toss the following morning and, to the undisguised irritation of his players, the Australians were forced to field in heat that would have cowed rattlesnakes.

As early as the squad's arrival in Colombo a month prior, team medical staff had expressed fears that mid-October in Sharjah could present a serious health threat. Constant daily temperatures above 40C coupled with 90 per cent humidity meant players were likely to lose up to three kilograms of body weight through fluid loss over the course of a two-hour session.

On that Test's first day, a thermometer placed on the pitch during the lunch break showed 48 degrees. But so intent was Stephen Waugh on showing the Pakistanis that his team was mentally and physically stronger, he instructed his men to run between their fielding positions at every rotation of strike and each over's end.

It was strategy ruthlessly lifted from Erwin Rommel's desert playbook, and likewise produced its share of casualties.

After bowling three overs, Andy Bichel, the raw-boned Queenslander who boasted commando-level fitness and endurance, became so disoriented he wandered, dazed, in the opposite direction to his assigned fielding location. Two overs later, he was helped to the dressing room and immediately placed on a saline drip.

Brett Lee was mystified by the muddy pool that started to form on the popping crease soon after he began his stint with the ball. It turned out that sweat was being squeezed from his sodden socks, and out through a hole cut in the toe of his left boot to ease foot pressure as he hit his delivery stride.

Having bowled his three overs, he strapped an ice vest under his shirt and, from then on, he and Glenn McGrath operated in one-over spells.

And most of their teammates wore towelling collars stuffed with ice cubes around their necks, in a throwback to the wetted neckerchief sported by Douglas Jardine during the equally intemperate Bodyline summer of 70 years earlier.

As an exercise in human endurance, it bordered on lunacy. But as a test of wills, it was a no-contest.

Spooked by their superhuman opponents, it was the Pakistan batsmen who wilted.

Their team was bowled out for 59 in just over a session on the opening day. It would have sent shockwaves of disbelief through the crowd, if one had bothered to show up. Even allowing for play beginning on traditional Muslim prayer Friday, the banks of red plastic seats radiating beneath towering Bedouin-style canopies sat tellingly vacant.

The Pakistanis were bamboozled by Shane Warne who, confronted by a lifeless pitch that offered neither spin nor bounce, bowled ostensibly flat over-spinners released from the front of his hand and watched with bemused satisfaction as a series of batsmen simply missed the straight ones. His remarkable match figures of 8-24 included four lbw decisions against clueless opponents who had no idea where the ball wasn't going.

In a series that had been planned to celebrate Pakistan's 50 years as a Test-nation, fears that their vapid first innings marked the low-point of that golden jubilee were quickly re-evaluated the following day when they were bowled out for 53 in less time than it takes to watch a Hollywood blockbuster.

Anyone looking to blame the hostile conditions for such spinelessness was pointed towards Australian opener Matthew Hayden who, in the period between Pakistan's twin humiliations, not only batted three hours longer than his 11 opponents managed across two innings and withstood a blow on the head during an epic showdown with rival express bowler Shoaib Akhtar, he ended up outscoring them by seven runs.

It remains the only occasion in the past 70 years that Australia has wrapped up a Test win inside two days.

This is an edited extract from 'The Wrong Line' by Andrew Ramsey published by ABC Books and which is available in paperback or e-book through the ABC Shop