The People's Republic of Rishabh Pant.

 But skipper, you need to put yourself first for a change

It’s not easy. It’s easy. It’s not easy. It’s easy. It’s not easy... 

Is that what it’s like being Rishabh Pant, the captain of Delhi Capitals? To win one match, to lose the next one, to then win one, only to lose the next one. Again, and yet again. 

You know how the season started. It wasn’t easy. Most of your gun overseas players were not available. While those who were, didn’t quite turn up. 

Yet you started the season with a win against Mumbai Indians. But then you saw, that was the least you could’ve done as a team. If DC’s mega auction saw its strengths of the previous seasons dissipate one by one, MI lost it in style at the table. This seemed far more obvious on the ground. 

Yet there have been far more positives for DC, the biggest: Kuldeep Yadav. And your role in backing him has been downright exceptional. 

Moving beyond picking him for DC, looking for R Ashwin’s replacement, someone to partner Axar Patel, and regardless of whatever good that happened in the DC backrooms - the bonhomie between Kuldeep and you has been beautiful. The hugs, brotherhood, and love after each wicket, that has reignited the legend of Kulcha. 

Beyond the wickets and wins, whether Chahal’s or Kuldeep’s, is the Kulcha love. Indian cricket’s love for these spinning brothers was rolled out in style. Above that, was Chahal’s love and regard for Kuldeep and vice versa. When Kuldeep struck on the field, Chahal struck on Twitter. It was spontaneous. It was stunning. It was a brotherhood of man. 

No wonder Kuldeep thanked Chahal, calling him an elder brother, who backed him through his toughest hour. DC often won because of Kuldeep. When he had bite, DC chewed and spat out oppositions. 

For most of the tournament, Kuldeep’s wickets were second to only Chahal’s. As his skipper and wicketkeeper, you were masterly. You were all in. Backer. Friend. It was obvious, Kuldeep celebrated each wicket with you, as if it was as much yours as his. This was a great IPL story unfolding right there, and you were its enforcer. 

Later, whether you underbowled Kuldeep, whether the wickets dried up, all that paled. You had toasted the season with the emancipation of Kuldeep Yadav. When he said, he didn’t fear being hit, that he wanted Chahal to win the purple cap, that was the spirit of sport. Soaring so high it was breathtaking. That spirit-of-cricket award should just be called Kulcha. 

Beyond being Rishabh Pant, you are The People’s Republic of Rishabh Pant. 

The camaraderie between Ponting and you. It’s obvious to even the untrained eye, that this is more than coach-captain. Between you and Axar, Warner and you. You and Khaleel. Of course Kuldeep and you. Shaw and you. Shaw and Ponting. These are all extensions of DC’s love mesh. As a captain, this is your greatest achievement. 

As I will never tire of saying, how can you not love Rishabh Pant. And I hope you, Rishabh, never lose sight of that, of yourself, of your greatest strength, as a human being. 

One of your great gifts is the disarming honesty with which you speak. It may not always be palatable. It may even seem tactless.  But this is your core. What makes you-you, to your team, your coach, yourself. And the many roles that you must inhabit. 

Prithvi Shaw’s unavailability over the last few games, the repeated Covid-19 outbreaks in the DC camp, being locked up in rooms repeatedly, being unable to train, then turn up and behave like everything is hunky-dory, maybe possible for a less expressive man; not you.

The oft-used phrase for MSD and you is: ‘The master and the apprentice’. Yet when you reacted to a borderline waist-high full toss call, asking your boys to walk off; not too dissimilar to what MS had asked of his players; you were pulled up, fined your entire match fees. Not quite the case with MS, who went scot-free.

***

But what about your season? Where are you with the bat? Has everything off the field gotten to you, or have you performed in spite of it? 

After the defeat to CSK, you are not in the top 20 scorers, you are 21st. This is from 10 innings with one not-out. Your batting average and strike-rate may be higher than some above you, but what about your impact? A highest of 44, strike-rate of 152.71, averaging 31.22, a tally of 281 runs, acceptable if you are a finisher – but as a top-order bat? 

Your IPL numbers are not too unlike Sanju Samson’s. Like you, he’s a wicketkeeper captain. He’s batted one more innings, scored 321 runs, averaging 32.1, striking 155.82. He is top-order too. He has two 50s though, a highest of 55. Neither of you have kicked on though. 

Then there is MS Dhoni, sometimes player, sometimes captain. A floater in the batting order, though more a lower order finisher now: 10 innings, 5 not outs, 163 runs, averaging 32.60, striking at 139.31. And one 50 not out to boot. 

Wriddhiman Saha joined the IPL race a tad late but in 6 innings, opening, he has 209 runs, averaging 34.83, striking at 130. 

Two spaces below you is the toast of the IPL – Dinesh Karthik. No longer captain, new franchise, wicketkeeper, finisher. 274 runs, 8 not-outs from 12 innings, a highest of 66* (higher than both you and Samson’s top score), a batting average of 68.5 compounded by the not-outs, and a strike rate of 200.

The race for wicketkeeper-batters for the World Cup is on, it’s between Samson, Karthik and you, at best, two will make the squad. But before that, who knows, all there could get a shot in the pre-World Cup matches. 

In the previous two seasons, you had taken on damage control mode with Shreyas Iyer, batting deep with a conservative strike rate. This season started similarly, yet somewhere something clicked. You started to play with freedom. 

DC’s continuous search for openers has broken whatever momentum Warner-Shaw built together. You have a minimum of three matches left this season. With Shaw’s unavailability, Warner and you are DC’s only top-order bats with striking form.

It’s up to you, what impact you want to bring in the powerplay. Coming in after two early wickets, and going full throttle with a thin middle order, is not letting you break free for long.

The only way you can make a cameo into something substantial is by either opening or moving up to three. And breaking the game in the powerplay with Warner. Anything else is more out of hope and restraint.  

And that isn’t quite you. 

Go Rishabh, fly away on top. Add to that solitary IPL century from four years ago.

First published here

Read more...

Return

A note to Rahul Tewatia

Thank you for challenging perceptions, for re-opening the selection debate, for making us look at the role of a finisher

Dear Rahul,

You may not ever play for India. If you had to, you should have in the previous T20 World Cup. But then that night happened. Again. You’re a repeat offender, offending the sensibilities of these written scripts, that proclaim repeatedly who are the chosen ones.

You are not the chosen one. Yet you choose to be. Perhaps you know what they refuse to know. Perhaps you know, you play with freedom - with a middle finger to everything that is stacked up against you. 

That in itself is beautiful. To play with freedom. Very few do. The great Indian stars, once they become great or on the threshold of greatness, cannot. 

You are an Indian star. But you are not great. You may never be great. That is a blessing. Great Indian stars are Virat, Rohit, Rishabh, Jasprit, Hardik and Mahi. 

Just as they have their highs, they have their lows. Their lows are often far more terrific than their highs. 

But you, Rahul, you achieve great things. You take the uncertainty and shove it somewhere deeply painful in the opposition’s unmentionables. 

It’s great to see, that you will be mentioned throughout this IPL again. Not just as a memory of what you did in Sharjah, but what you did in Brabourne. 

What did you do? What. Did. You. Do. It’s beyond how and to whom. It’s 12 off the last 2 is what you did. 

There will be jokes. Jokes in awe of you. That Tewatia pulled off a Tewatia. Again. 

Do you realise what that is? Tomorrow if one of those bigger names pull off something similar, they will be pulling off a Tewatia. It will be spoken as such on air. And not just by Graeme Swann. 

Secretly, they are in awe of you. As they shepherd their flock, without the freedom to let loose their own batting. 

***

There are two designated Indian greats in your team, Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill, who opens the batting, and your skip, Hardik Pandya, who opens the bowling and bats at four. Both have played for India. And when they don’t play for India, India waits for them to turn up. To turn a corner. To regain form. To rehabilitate. 

The wait can be tricky, much as it can be a carrot. Prior to this season, Gill’s T20 striking wasn’t even compelling enough for his franchise to retain him. Pandya’s fitness and lack of form, meant his erstwhile team, Mumbai Indians let him go. 

You found yourself at Gujarat with them. While Gill is going through a T20 renaissance in his last two innings, his IPL career strike rate is 126.15 

As for Pandya, (mostly a lower middle-order batter and finisher as yourself) strikes a shade over 150. However, in his last season, his strike dipped to 113, his batting average to a mere 14. Your batting numbers weren’t any better. Subsequently, your franchise didn’t retain you either. 

While Pandya didn’t bowl in either of the last two seasons, he has now, bending his back, not just opening, but closing too. 

Though you didn’t bowl in GT’s first outing, you won it with the bat 40* (24). Meanwhile, Pandya had already settled into a sustaining role, looking to bat out the innings, with his 33 (28). Pandya continued with his approach in the second game, as you blazed on 15(8) in the death overs. This match, you bowled. 

By the third match, Pandya got a move on 27(18), but your batting exploded: 13(3). You sealed the deal. 

While India is on the lookout for a lower order finisher who can bowl, Pandya is bang in the middle, more top order than finisher, looking to be the glue in a relatively thin batting line-up. 

Previously: Pandya made the T20 World Cup. After a couple of uneventful outings against New Zealand and Pakistan, where he bowled a sum total of 2 overs. In all likelihood, he will be back in the reckoning. As too will most of India’s alleged T20 mainstay. 

This may even be at the cost of outstanding performances by yourself and many other lesser names. 

Already written in stone are the following: Rohit, Rahul, Kohli, Pant, Ishan, SKY, and who knows, Pandya. Or are they? Out of these, only Pandya may bowl. All these are top-order batters for their franchise. 

What performances such as yours do is open the debate again – that there is an alternative. And even if you may not be the answer, there is someone else. That India can, and should move beyond the greats first, in the shortest format, as they did in 2007. 

***

What makes the debate confusing is that players tend to adopt roles for their franchise which contradict what is expected of them if and when they play for India. A case in point is Rishabh Pant. Who faces a similar predicament as Pandya. Bats at four, and tends to restrain himself and look to bat through the innings. 

Pant has over the last three seasons been striking at much less than 130. Compare that with the promise of the three seasons before that, which were in excess of 160. Captaincy, senior player tag, restraint, responsibility, it’s terribly confusing, and not easy to undo, as Indian stars try to change their approach from the IPL to internationals. 

Sanju Samson may not yet be the chosen one, but he is an alternative to Pant. He captains his franchise, also bats at four, is flexible to move up to three; and significantly, has been striking at well above 130 for the last six years. He also goes big from ball one. 

But then, against KKR, Pant rushed himself up to three, striking at nearly 200; scoring 27(14). 

***

Team India tends to zero in on all-format players. While Pant has been exceptional in Tests, his white-ball performances haven’t quite cut it yet – his overall strike rate in T20Is for India is 125. In his fledgling career, Pant has already been over-scrutinised, called-out, dropped repeatedly. His comebacks have been nothing short of stunning. But mostly in Test cricket.

India waits on him, in the hope that he will transplant his Test form into the shorter format.

Just as well, the white ball auditions are on. This month, and the next one.

Go for it, Rahul. And all of you who dare to dream and defy the status quo. There is no door to knock at. It’s just the ball you have to knock the stuffing out of. India is watching.

Best to you, and all those who want to pull off a Tewatia,

Sincerely,

Gaurav Sethi 

PS: Last night, Stoinis nearly pulled off a Tewatia. 

First published here

Read more...

Return