Cricket 2.0

by Tim Wigmore

  It was hard to detect such a systematic approach to recruitment at Bangalore. For instance, in the 2011 auction Bangalore spent £990,000 on Saurabh Tiwary – a 21-year-old Indian batsman who had shown promise but who had only played 31 T20 matches. The fee made Tiwary the most expensive player at the auction who had not played international cricket. After three underwhelming seasons, in which he made just one 50 in 31 innings, Tiwary was released.

  RCB also developed an unfortunate penchant for releasing players who then excelled at other teams. Before the 2018 season, Bangalore released the dashing Indian batsman Lokesh Rahul and Gayle, whose returns had been dwindling. Both players were reunited at the top of the order for Kings XI Punjab and plundered a combined 1,027 runs. Watson was also released by RCB that year and excelled for CSK, proving much more effective at the top of the order than in the middle order where RCB had deployed him. The following season, Sarfaraz Khan and Quinton de Kock were both released by Bangalore and proceeded to have the best IPL seasons of their careers at their new clubs.

  The case of Sarfaraz was particularly interesting because it showcased Bangalore’s mismanagement. An RCB insider, speaking anonymously, recalled how bowling coach Ashish Nehra shot down Sarfaraz in a way that dented his confidence. ‘Sarfaraz got 90 off 30 balls in a warm-up game on an absolutely horrible wicket against our full-strength bowling attack – he smashed it.’ After others had praised him, ‘Nehra pulled him aside and absolutely gave it to him. Basically he said you’re shit, you’re fat, you’re overweight, you’ll never make it, you’re not very well liked, I’m going to push to have you not selected. Nehra absolutely destroyed Sarfaraz.’

  Another auction trick that Bangalore struggled to exploit was utilising local state players as Chennai did. While Ashwin, Badrinath and Vijay all made more than 75 appearances for CSK, not a single Karnataka player did so for RCB. In 2018 Bangalore were ruled out of play-off contention when they lost against a Rajasthan Royals team powered by figures of 4 for 16 from Shreyas Gopal and cameos with bat and ball from Krishnappa Gowtham – two young players who represented Karnataka in state cricket but had been snapped up by another franchise. It was a humiliating result for RCB that underlined their failure to utilise their state network.

  For all the complexities inherent in the auction, Bangalore’s travails made them figures of fun. In 2017 Bangalore were bowled out for 49 by a Kolkata bowling attack comprising Chris Woakes, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Umesh Yadav and Colin de Grandhomme. Next year, RCB promptly signed all four players at the auction. Although this wasn’t a predetermined plan, it could be considered a classic example of what psychologists term the availability bias, with decision-makers drawn to who came to mind most readily – the bowlers who had flummoxed Bangalore the year before – rather than evaluating everyone fairly. And it rather encapsulated what Bangalore had become. If you can’t beat them, sign them.

  ***

  Do teams win because they pick the same team or do teams pick the same team because they are winning? It is not an easy question to answer but over a decade CSK and RCB provided two fascinating case studies.

  Bangalore finished in the top four in two of the first three IPL seasons but without a title retained just one player, Virat Kohli, before the 2011 mega auction. At the auction itself, they only bought back four players. CSK – who had reached three play-offs and had one title to their name – retained four players and bought back seven, foreshadowing the approach they would adopt at the 2014 and 2018 mega auctions. The success of Kolkata Knight Riders proved that radical squad overhauls could be effective but they required planning and thought that RCB didn’t appear to apply.

  ‘The group is pretty much the same every year,’ said Sam Billings who played for CSK in 2018 and 2019. ‘They have a history of retaining the vast majority of their squad.’

  Chennai were not only more patient with players than Bangalore when they were enjoying success, but also avoided overreacting to defeats. On average CSK made 0.9 team changes after a victory and just 1.6 after a defeat while RCB made an average of 1.2 team changes when they won and a lofty 2.4 when they lost.

  Average Team Changes by Previous Result

  Match Result

  CSK

  IPL Average

  RCB

  Won

  0.9

  1.2

  1.2

  Lost

  1.6

  2.1

  2.4

  ‘Consistency of selection is a big factor in RCB’s struggles,’ said Kartik. ‘RCB do the opposite of what CSK does. CSK is a template that other teams should follow. Every T20 team where I have been successful or where they have won tournaments – places like Middlesex and Somerset – people and captains hardly made any changes. So if we had 12 or 13 players that would be the number of people used during the season.’

  The benefits of this consistency of selection were myriad. Firstly, the stability bred familiarity of roles for the players who became accustomed to their job in the team. As players continued to be involved they became better at what they were tasked with doing. At the start of new seasons at Chennai, Hussey recalled that there was no need for big strategy meetings to outline roles and responsibilities: the large majority of players were simply continuing their jobs from the year before. ‘Everyone knew each other inside and out so it was a case of just get our heads down and just get into it.’

  The trust placed in players also encouraged them to play with freedom – particularly essential in T20 where failure, even for the best batsmen, was wired into the format. In the IPL, where an overseas player’s salary was directly linked to the number of games they played, consistency of selection helped avoid situations where players might play selfishly. A batsman fretting about being dropped might, consciously or unconsciously, bat more carefully rather than attack. Sometimes the interests of the player and team might collide.

  ‘There’s no way of measuring the confidence that gets instilled in a player from being selected and being around the group and being made to feel comfortable. I think that’s a priceless entity that a lot of teams miss,’ said Billings.

  ‘They believe in a certain individual,’ explained Kartik. ‘T20 is a format where players are doing things for you, putting their neck on the line, asked to up the ante, take risks and do well for the team and if they succeed, they succeed but if they fail the belief of the team management, captain and coach is what will make them play well the next time.’

  Thirdly, the patience afforded to players at Chennai demonstrated an understanding and acceptance of the format’s vicissitudes. Compared to other sports, T20 seasons were very short, with no more than 14 matches in a regular competition. This gave rise to short-termism among coaches, prone to overreacting to defeats because they were fretting about their own jobs.

  Chennai took a different approach. ‘Even if you miss out in three or four games, if they know you’re a good player they’ll keep backing you no matter what, whereas you see with a lot of other teams that they really chop and change a lot,’ said Hussey. ‘In a game like T20 where it can be quite volatile you are going to have a period where you are going to miss out a few times.’

  ‘Other teams are so quick to drop players and make a change and try and find the ideal combination,’ added Kartik. ‘The ideal combination in T20 is found by giving trust and having trust and giving that feeling that you’re our player.’

  Dravid believed that CSK’s stability came from the very top: their owners. ‘India Cements understand the ups and downs of cricket because the company had supported cricket since the 1970s and they’ve been running a league in Madras. They don’t panic as quickly as some of the other teams have.

  ‘Unfortunately in a 14-game tournament a lot boils down to luck. One thing here, one thing there. If you start attributing things or trying to look for reasons, you can’t always find them. The team that does a lot of things right can still lose a game, and the team that does a lot of things wrong can still win a game, but
it is not perceived that way. ‘Sack the coaches, these players weren’t good, pick new players.’ I find it can get a bit chaotic at times.’

  Brendon McCullum, who played for both CSK and RCB, recognised inconsistency of selection as something that hampered teams’ ability to play aggressive cricket.

  ‘Franchise cricket is very different to international cricket to try and build an aggressive team. When you try and play aggressive cricket you need an all-in mentality. You need consistent selection policies; you’re asking guys to go out there and play at a level that may even be slightly uncomfortable for them and it will become more comfortable the more they do it. But initially it will be uncomfortable and what comes with that is a bit of insecurity and a bit of doubt and often a lot of inconsistencies.

  ‘With New Zealand it was very easy to get that all-in approach because we are from a small country and there’s not a huge amount of depth. We had one sort of theme of cricketers who were all able to get on the bus, sitting on the right seats and heading in the right direction. With these franchises it can be a lot more difficult.’

  Personal relationships were also stronger in international cricket, where players spent most of the year together, rather than just a few weeks when they were competing for places and potentially salaries. McCullum believed this created an environment more suited to attacking play at international level. ‘I was invested in the people. I knew their parents’ names, their kids’ names, what motivated them in the game and genuinely they were my friends and I felt like I was fully invested in them and it’s very hard to get that level of emotional attachment. You know when you go over the wall they are coming with you.’

  Nurturing an attacking philosophy at domestic level was something McCullum grappled with during his time as captain of Brisbane Heat and Lahore Qalandars, where his teams generally struggled. However, his appointment as head coach of Trinbago and Kolkata Knight Riders in August 2019 gave him more power and influence to encourage an aggressive mentality from the top down.

  The 2019 IPL season distilled the contrasting approaches CSK and RCB took to selection. Having spent £475,000 at the 2019 auction on the brilliantly talented 22-year-old West Indies batsman Shimron Hetmyer, RCB gave him just four innings – three in the middle order, two of them in the difficult number five position, and one as opener – in which he scored just 15 runs. Having lost all four matches, Bangalore paid little heed to the complexity of Hetmyer’s role or the small number of opportunities he had and unceremoniously dropped him, leaving him out for nine matches. Hetmyer wasn’t selected again until the final match of the season, when RCB were already out. A match-winning 75 in his first match back, off just 47 balls, underlined Bangalore’s mismanagement.

  While Hetmyer struggled for RCB, Watson was in similar strife for Chennai, averaging just 18.75 across his first eight innings of the season. Rather than dropping him, CSK persisted with Watson. In his following eight innings he scored 251 runs with three 50s, including one in the final.

  ‘With someone like Shane Watson it is a matter of time,’ said Hussey. ‘It is a matter of when, not if. When you’ve got a quality player there then they are going to come good at some stage and it is about keeping the faith in them.’

  The start of a new IPL season was often marked by Bangalore scrabbling around for their best combination; Chennai did not have to. ‘RCB get it wrong to start with, then chop and change and by the time they have chopped and changed they finally identify the right team but it is too late,’ said the RCB insider.

  Research by Gain Line Analytics suggested that continuity of selection also had benefits to team cohesion and performance in high-pressure games. Between 2008 and 2018 Gain Line found that there was little correlation between success and the number of games played by players individually, but the more cohesion a team had, as measured by their games played together and stability of the side, the more successful they generally were. This suggested that teams should look to sign players who were used to playing together, and working in tandem with the bat and ball.

  By the end of 2019 Chennai had used only 74 different players across 189 matches – easily the fewest of the original eight IPL teams, both overall and on a per-game basis. Their captain, Dhoni and vice-captain Raina, had remained the same in every season. In contrast, Bangalore had been led by six different captains and had used 129 different players across 196 matches, the most of all teams overall. That equated to almost twice as many new players as Chennai for each match.

  Players used by IPL Teams, 2008–19

  Team

  Matches

  Players

  New Players per Match

  CSK

  189

  74

  0.39

  DD

  185

  114

  0.61

  KXIP

  181

  116

  0.64

  KKR

  194

  106

  0.54

  MI

  209

  109

  0.52

  SRH/DC

  191

  129

  0.67

  RR

  154

  107

  0.69

  RCB

  196

  129

  0.66

  The difference between the two teams was ‘simple,’ said McCullum. ‘One team gives selection loyalty and works on the team they have; the other chases a perfect team and doesn’t have a blueprint for how they are going to play.’

  Chennai’s stability extended beyond the players. Having represented CSK in the inaugural season, Fleming was appointed head coach in 2009, where he has remained ever since. A number of Fleming’s support staff also used to play for Chennai: in 2019, both the batting and bowling coaches had played for CSK in the 2008 final.

  Fleming’s style of leadership emphasised making players feel comfortable. The IPL was a peculiar environment with a lot of unfamiliar players from different backgrounds and cultures spending an intense six-week period together. Establishing a laid-back team culture allowed his players to thrive despite the chaos.

  In an interview with Cricket Monthly Fleming recalled a conversation he had with Matthew Hayden, who was one year his senior, in 2009: ‘What will be the best thing for you during this IPL in India? What would be the ultimate programme for you?’ He said, ‘Mate, surfing. I want to surf.’ I said, ‘Okay, mate. Surf. We will send you wherever you want to go. You surf, obviously you have franchise commitments, but outside that, we will see you game day. Let’s see how you go.’

  That season, Hayden scored 572 runs at an average of 52.00. ‘My philosophy is to empower players,’ explained Fleming. ‘Empower the player to, one, decide if he wants to train, and then tell me what he wants to train.’

  Washington, who played under Fleming at Rising Pune Supergiant, recognised Fleming’s ability as a man-manager. ‘Fleming knows how to get the best of any individual and understands the individual really well. He’s always cool and calm.’

  Thirty-nine when he was appointed head coach, Fleming was inexperienced for such a role. However, his task was made easier by the experience within Chennai’s squad.

  Ostensibly T20 was an action-packed format that demanded youth. Yet this perception belied the importance of experienced players, able to maintain their equanimity during the bedlam of the IPL.

  In 2018, Chennai recruited 11 players over the age of 30 years old and four above 35. That season their average age of 34 years and six months was comfortably the oldest in the league: the nickname ‘Dad’s Army’ naturally followed.

  ‘This year we have really valued experience,’ explained Fleming in a press conference after the auction. ‘M.S. [Dhoni] and I are on the same wavelength that experience counts. So if you look at our side there’s a lot of experience through there. Understanding an IPL and what’s involved in an IPL.’

  It was suspected that fielding would be one area of the game whe
re Chennai’s older side would cost them. Fielding standards as a whole were elevated by T20 but CSK’s ageing squad was considered ill-suited to the athleticism of the modern game.

  Yet fielding was one area of cricket that remained misunderstood. Chennai’s older players were slightly slower movers in the field than younger opponents and this did mean they weren’t as quick to the ball or as swift across the ground – but generally this might cost them four or five runs per match. The one area of fielding that impacted the scoreboard most significantly was catching, where Chennai’s age was no impediment.

  According to CricViz, Chennai’s successful stop percentage of 63% was the third worst in the 2018 IPL season but their successful catch percentage of 80% was the third best. Across the season CricViz estimated that Chennai’s fielding saved three runs per match – the second most of all teams.

  Chennai’s success with an older, less agile fielding team was a fascinating window into an unexplored area of the game. Dravid, who was considered one of India’s finest cricketing thinkers, believed that fielding in T20 was fundamentally overvalued.

  ‘If you go for a better fielder and his inexperience costs you because he bowls three full tosses at the back end of a T20, that’s 18 runs,’ said Dravid. ‘I don’t care how good a fielder he is, he is not going to save 18 runs in a T20 game. I am not saying the experienced guy won’t go for a six but he might go for two twos and then the inexperienced guy has cost you eight runs and that’s still a huge amount to save in the field just to be even.’

  Dravid thought that in T20, where boundary hitting tended to be more decisive than strike rotation, it was possible to ‘hide’ weak fielders, whereas in 50-over cricket, where strike rotation mattered more and therefore more fielders were in the game, fielding had more value. ‘In T20 you definitely need a very good long on and long off, you need a good deep point, deep square leg and a guy at deep midwicket. You need four or five guns and you need a good keeper, to take those stumpings or stop edges or take catches. The rest of the five guys, I would not compromise or I would not worry.’