by Tim Wigmore
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Captaincy is arguably more important in cricket than any other major team sport. The importance of the strategic side of the game may be even greater in T20. In a format with such tiny margins between victory and defeat, the significance of every captaincy decision is amplified. This applies not only to macro-strategies – such as bowling changes and batting orders – but to micro-strategies such as field placements and ball-by-ball tactics.
‘The value of every over is much more in T20,’ said Dravid, who captained India, RCB and Rajasthan Royals. ‘The ability to come back from a bad decision is much easier in 50-over or Test cricket than in T20.’
‘In sports like NFL, NBA and soccer there are a lot of plans and strategies made but everything is done by the manager,’ explained Sundararaman. ‘They play a big role during the game from the sidelines. They are allowed to communicate, they are allowed to chat – they’ve been given more power. Whereas in cricket that is rarely the case. In franchise cricket you have coaches constantly changing. There’s hardly any continuity. Coaches don’t play a big role on the field; they play it off the field and during strategic timeouts but more or less it is run by the captain so the captain needs to be the one who makes sure plans get executed.’
There were many structural reasons why Chennai won and why Bangalore lost, but the captaincy of Dhoni and Kohli perpetuated these fundamental differences. Although Chennai’s squad was well structured and Bangalore’s was not, CSK consistently overperformed what could be expected from their playing strength; RCB did the opposite. The captaincy of Dhoni and Kohli was a big part of this.
To watch Dhoni and Kohli captain was to observe two strikingly contrasting operators. Dhoni epitomised equanimity: from behind the stumps he would calmly marshal his bowlers and his field, he rarely looked flustered and never looked panicked. ‘He [Dhoni] is absolutely incredible. He is one of a kind to be honest. What people say about him is what you see. He is a very calm, cool, collected guy,’ said Hussey.
Dhoni’s phlegmatic leadership was juxtaposed by Kohli, who – often patrolling the boundary rope – was a hurricane of emotion, totally transparent and volatile. Wickets would send him into raptures; dropped catches into a frenzy. Boundaries would be met with a kick of the turf and a shake of the head. And, after defeats, he was far more prone to changing the team than Dhoni.
Kohli was an instinctive and impulsive captain, but his status as the game’s most iconic player meant he could invigorate his players. ‘He gets all the other members in the side inspired and motivated,’ said Washington, who played at RCB in 2018 and 2019. ‘His pep talks in particular have been very helpful for players to go out there and express themselves.’
Their respective appearances reflected the tactical clarity present at both teams. ‘CSK has very little “white noise” around them,’ observed McCullum. ‘RCB have too much.’
Dhoni’s brilliance as a tactician and the stability of his relationship with Fleming established the pair as the primary decision-makers at Chennai. Success on the field entrenched this hierarchy. ‘Decision-making will come down to Flem and Dhoni at the end of the day,’ said Hussey, batting coach in 2018 and 2019.
While Dhoni was the predominant strategist and tactician, he bounced ideas off Fleming and the pair challenged one another. ‘There’s a lot of trust between the two of them,’ explained Billings.
The value of Dhoni’s tactical nous to Chennai was highlighted in 2019; he missed two games with a back injury and Chennai were beaten on both occasions. ‘[Dhoni is] a great leader and a great player and he’s been a constant for us for so many years that you get into the rhythms of having him there and when you take a leader like that out, there are going to be some holes to fill,’ explained Fleming after the second of CSK’s two defeats without Dhoni.
At Bangalore, Kohli was appointed captain in 2013, aged just 24. Yet as the world’s premier batsman, the face of Indian cricket and the heir apparent to Dhoni as Indian captain, he was the obvious choice to lead RCB. But in the seven IPL seasons until 2019, Kohli struggled to establish a strong strategic presence; in tight, tactical matches his judgement calls would often backfire. Unlike the stability of Chennai, Kohli worked with three different coaches in seven seasons.
Yet such was the cult of personality surrounding Kohli in Indian cricket, direct criticism of his captaincy was rare. ‘Virat is so powerful in Indian cricket that if you get on the wrong side of him there’s no scope to work there ever again,’ explained one IPL insider, understandably speaking anonymously. ‘He’s a horrendous captain. Because his instincts are overpowered by emotions that are usually wrong. So for me instincts are normally 50:50 and it is amazing that his emotions aren’t a coin toss. His emotions are usually 25:75 in terms of negativity.’
‘CSK are so good because Dhoni understands the format so well. But I think Virat doesn’t get it at times,’ said a former Bangalore player who also asked to remain anonymous.
In 2019, former KKR captain Gautam Gambhir became Kohli’s most high-profile public critic. ‘I don’t see him as a shrewd captain and I don’t see him as a tactful captain,’ said Gambhir on Star Sports.
‘You cannot compare him to someone like Rohit or Dhoni at this stage because he has been part of RCB, and captaining RCB for the last seven to eight years, and he has been very lucky and should be thanking the franchise that they stuck with him because not many captains have got such a long rope where they haven’t won a tournament.’
Of course, to a large extent Kohli was hamstrung by RCB’s weak squads. But it seemed that his leadership compounded rather than helped alleviate those problems.
Managing Kohli’s impulses as captain was a constant battle for RCB’s management. ‘Virat is such a respectful guy that he is always going to listen to his elders,’ said the team insider. ‘2016 was awesome because he was unmarried; there was no one around that he felt like he had to impress. There was A.B., Shane Watson, but he was comfortable with them. There was no Yuvraj Singh, there was no Vijay Mallya. There was no one. So he was able to trust Dan Vettori. And Vettori was excellent. So those two had a really close relationship.’
However, the insider believed that the appointment of former Indian fast bowler Nehra as bowling coach in 2018 derailed things. ‘Nehra’s instincts are that bad. Nehra is as toxic an individual and has as bad an understanding of the game from that perspective as there has been,’ a criticism which spoke of the tensions at the franchise. In 2019, by which point Vettori had been sacked as head coach, Nehra could be seen directing Kohli’s bowling and field changes from the sidelines, and his influence illustrated the challenge of nurturing a productive team environment in the IPL. Too many voices could quickly become confusing and overwhelming.
Unlike Kohli, Dhoni appeared to have a preternatural understanding of captaincy. The speed and effectiveness at which he read the game was remarkable. ‘His feel for the game is second to none, there is no doubt about that,’ said Billings. By the end of the 2019 IPL, Dhoni had played 862 matches at professional level in all formats and captained in 547 of them; only eight players in the history of the game had captained more often. This vast memory bank of experience gave Dhoni a mind unlike any other in the modern game.
‘Dhoni is very calm and knows what is needed in the situation of the game and the conditions,’ said the off-spinner Washington, who played under Dhoni at Rising Pune Supergiant. ‘He knows how to get the best out of every individual. As a bowler if I listen to what he says, half the job is done and things get a little easier because there’s no room for confusion.’
Chennai used data analysis behind the scenes but Dhoni was very rarely exposed to it. It wasn’t that CSK rejected the premise of calculated decision-making. Instead, Dhoni’s mind, fine-tuned by 100s of matches, did the calculations alone, like a cricket supercomputer. ‘He quite often goes with his gut and quite often his gut is right. It’s amazing sometimes watching him go to work out there,’ said Hussey.
Often
Dhoni’s reading of the game would be supported by data but occasionally his interpretation would challenge the numbers. For example, in a match against KKR in the 2019 IPL the data would have dissuaded most captains from bowling spin to Sunil Narine. Dhoni calculated that Harbhajan was one spin bowler who matched up well with Narine because of his slower speeds. It took Harbhajan just four balls to get his man when a slow, wide tempter beat Narine in the air and took the edge. ‘Dhoni knew that if he bowls at this speed on this pitch Narine will get out and that’s exactly what happened,’ said Sundararaman.
At Chennai Dhoni’s influence extended beyond the playing field. Hussey believed Dhoni’s calmness informed the franchise’s stability and consistency of selection. ‘He hardly ever panics and that comes through obviously with all the selections. If there’s any thought of chopping and changing things – he will generally take a step back and take a big deep breath and say no, no come on it’s okay.’ Dhoni’s equanimity meant that he understood the uncertainty inherent in T20 and avoided overreacting to defeats, giving Chennai the best chance of enjoying sustained success.
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The cocktail of Dhoni’s captaincy, the role clarity produced by Chennai’s consistency of selection and the experience in the squad bred a remarkable team environment.
After CSK won their opening two matches in 2019 Dwayne Bravo revealed that Chennai, one of the most successful teams in T20 history, ‘don’t have team meetings’.
‘We don’t plan,’ said Bravo in a press conference. ‘We just turn up, go with the flow on any given day. We just watch the situation and adjust and adapt quickly. That’s where the experience comes in.’
The coaches interacted with players on a one-on-one basis and occasionally in small groups but entire team meetings were very rare. ‘I guess the Indian culture is a bit different in that respect. It’s not like a Western culture where you come together as a team and map things out. It’s a bit more fluid,’ said Hussey. ‘Flem certainly talks to the whole team but it sort of organically evolves. It might be sort of before training or in the dressing room after a game. That’s where he addresses things as a whole or as a team. Very rarely would we organise a get-together.’
In many respects this was the acme of T20 strategy. Chennai had built their squad so carefully, defined their player roles so clearly and grooved their method so consistently that very little needed to be said for them to perform. ‘Everyone knew their roles pretty clearly anyway so there was no need to confuse things with meaningless meetings,’ Hussey explained.
T20 was so young, the seasons were so short and the competition was often haphazard and confused with players and coaches coming and going. Yet in a game as volatile as T20, Chennai’s record of progressing to the play-offs in every season was a beacon of sustained excellence.
‘In any sport it’s very hard to be that consistent,’ observed Sundararaman. ‘If you look at Premier League football it’s very hard to finish in the top four every single year and in T20 it’s even harder because it is so volatile.
‘It’s a great achievement. One of the biggest achievements in sporting history since T20 was created. It’s not easy for a franchise to do what they’ve done. They have a great captain and a great culture.’
Chennai’s extraordinary dominance and Bangalore’s perpetual struggle carried lessons for teams in different leagues around the world. It affirmed that simply buying the world’s very best players would not guarantee success. There was strategy, man-management and nuance to T20 that proved more important than even the most star-studded team in the world.
THIRTEEN
THE DEMOCRATISATION OF CRICKET
‘Not just me, but the entire nation is proud of you’
Nepal’s prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba after 17-year-old Sandeep
Lamichhane was signed by the Indian Premier League in 2018
When Rashid Khan was born in Afghanistan – officially in 1998, though some suggest it was a couple of years earlier – the International Cricket Council had around 100 members. Afghanistan were not even among them.
Cricket in Afghanistan was a legacy of war. Afghans first came across the game in the 1980s, when they were refugees in Pakistan, principally Peshawar. Many watched Pakistan win the World Cup in 1992. In refugee camps thousands of Afghans forged a love for cricket, playing with a stick for a bat and tennis balls, or even just plastic bags wrapped up to make a ball. They took this new love back with them to Afghanistan.
In 1995, the Afghanistan Cricket Federation was formed. Despite its English origins, the sport was tolerated by the Taliban because of its conservative dress code and its popularity in Pakistan, one of only three states who recognised the Taliban as Afghanistan’s official government.
And so when Rashid was born in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, the notion that he would become one of the greatest cricketers of his age was completely fantastical. Afghanistan had no cricketing infrastructure, no fixtures and no way of developing players.
Rashid was the sixth-born child in his family; there would eventually be 11 – seven boys and four girls. Shortly after the US attacks on Afghanistan, which began in October 2001, Rashid fled with his family to Peshawar – where, as Afghans had during the Afghan-Soviet Union War in the 1980s, they learned cricket.
Yet Rashid and his family were different to the stereotype of Afghan refugees. They were part of Afghanistan’s middle class; their parents worked in a car business, and dreamed of Rashid becoming a doctor.
Rashid spent around a decade in Pakistan. Although he and his family sometimes returned to their home in Jalalabad, it was only at the end of 2013 that they returned there for good. In Pakistan, Rashid and his six brothers all bowled leg spin.
In Peshawar and then back in Jalalabad, Rashid would play cricket with a tape-ball – a tennis ball covered in tape. ‘I was playing a lot at home – three, four hours, playing with the brothers every day. That improved my game and my skills.’ In the family backyard or on the street, Rashid constantly devised new variations. The environment required experimentation to get ahead, with Rashid even trying to learn from Muttiah Muralitharan.
‘I used to bowl sometimes off spin, sometimes leg spin, sometimes the Murali action you know – just having fun. I loved bowling leg spin. I watched Shahid Afridi, Anil Kumble – these two were my favourites, I used to watch their videos a lot. So that’s how I was capable of bowling the leg spin very well. I had the skills and I had the talent in the leg spin that could turn the ball both ways.’
More than anyone else, Rashid very deliberately borrowed from Shahid Afridi, Pakistan’s leg-spinning all-rounder. Several other international leg-spinners were more renowned than Afridi, but as he hailed from Khyber, along the border with Afghanistan, he was a natural idol for young Afghan cricketers. Afridi’s leg spin, unusually quick, was also ideally suited to limited overs cricket. And his celebration – extending himself out to resemble a star after each wicket – was fun to imitate.
Turning a tape-ball on cement is reckoned to be tougher than turning a hard ball on a cricket pitch. ‘I got used to the tape-ball and turning the ball,’ Rashid said. ‘It was really tough to spin the ball but still I was spinning the ball on any surface – on cement and rough areas I was trying to spin it.’ The difficulty of obtaining spin encouraged Rashid to bowl quicker than other spinners, as Afridi did, giving him another weapon if the ball did not turn.
Rashid was 14 when he first played cricket with a hard ball, in a game in Peshawar. ‘My friend was going to play a hard-ball game. He told me, “Let’s go – we have only ten players so can you please just go and fill the place.”’ Then mainly a batsman, Rashid scored 65 in his first game. ‘I loved the game and I loved the hard-ball. I started thinking that I should play hard ball cricket and improve my skills and practise more and more.’ When bowling with a hard ball, Rashid used the ‘same grips’ he had honed with a tape-ball, and found they transferred well.
As Rashid entered his te
ens, Afghanistan’s national team soared. With a potent bowling attack, initially tailored around pace, and some brutal hitters throughout their batting order, Afghanistan took just six years between their first official international match, in 2004, and their first global event, the T20 World Cup in 2010, where Rashid first saw them play on TV. ‘When I saw the international side playing in the international level, then the motivation and everything started. I just tried my best to represent my country.’
When Rashid returned home, ‘we hardly had some good facilities, or some good grounds in Afghanistan. It was not green,’ he joked. He resolved to pursue his cricket with greater intensity. ‘When we came back home I played a lot – it was a little bit serious. And I thought, “Yeah I’m good enough, I just need to give a bit of time to it and improve my skills.”’ Rashid realised that his leg spin, rather than batting, was more likely to elevate his career; he had noted how leg-spinners were thriving in T20. ‘In every net session, I’m just trying my best to learn something new. I’m just experimenting with myself in the net sessions.’
In an age when talent production in elite sport can seem almost industrialised, Rashid is essentially an entirely self-taught cricketer who has reached the apex of his sport. Three months in Afghanistan’s academy were the limit of his formal coaching before playing international cricket. And, in the academy, as with Rashid’s subsequent teams, the coaches refrained from tinkering with his method. He considers his lack of formal coaching an advantage.
‘I think if I would have changed my action I would have lost my consistency, I would have lost my speed and my rhythm and everything. So I think whatever I have is something natural.
‘The coaches I’ve had in the national team have said the same thing – this is your advantage and this is your main weapon. You’re getting the success because you’re different than others and have a quick arm action, you have the speed so you don’t need to change these things. You just need to have something in your mind to be calm and cool and relaxed and enjoy yourself.’
