*Boosted by the inspired, top-notch captaincy of Shane Warne, the Rajasthan
side have been the romantic success story of the IPL*
Sambit Bal
May 6, 2008
The gambler: Warne has brought his card-player's instincts to Twenty20
with great success Martin Williamson
We often see gestures like it on the field, but only occasionally get to
hear the tales behind them. Here is one. When Yusuf Pathan tempted Adam
Gilchrist out of his crease and had him stranded in only the third over of
Rajasthan Royals' match against the Deccan
Chargers
no one was more animated than Shane Warne. While his team-mates were still
celebrating, he turned towards the Rajasthan dugout and made a little
gesture that said: "I told you so."
"We knew it was coming," said Jeremy Snape, who is part of Rajasthan's
support staff as performance coach. It had been Warne's idea to throw in
Pathan's offspin early against Gilchrist and he had been certain Pathan
would get Gilchrist out. "It took us a long time to discuss the machinations
of this strategy," Snape said. "When something like that happens, it's
brilliant."
With Warne orchestrating the moves as captain-coach, such things have
happened again and again with the Rajasthan Royals. Batsmen and bowlers are
known to have golden streaks, but for nearly two weeks we have seen a
captain in the zone. After a disastrous opening
match
the most unfancied team of the competition has won five in row, and
everything Warne has touched has turned to gold. The importance of luck in
captaincy cannot be overstated, but to repeat a hoary phrase, fortune
favours the brave. Warne has backed his instincts and gambled away.
In their second
match
against Punjab, he had two legspinners - himself and the unheralded Dinesh
Salunkhe, who came into the spotlight through a TV talent-hunt show and is
yet to play a first-class match - bowling together after six overs, and they
claimed three wickets in as many overs. Salunkhe got Mahela Jayawerdene
stumped.
Chasing 217 against the Deccan Chargers, Warne promoted Yusuf Pathan to No.
3 and Pathan blasted a 21-ball half century.
Against the Royal
Challengers
the customary deep fine-leg was done away with and a man was posted at the
square-leg boundary instead. Rahul Dravid pulled the first ball he faced
straight to him, and three more wickets fell to the short-ball trap.
In the next match, against
Kolkata
Warne pulled out little-known Swapnil Asnodkar, a frail-looking opening
batsman from Goa with a strike-rate of 41.23 in List A limited-overs
cricket, and Asnodkar blazed away to 60 off 34 balls.
Against Chennai
Warne handed the new ball to Sohail Tanvir and told him to look for wickets:
in the first over, Tanvir took two.
Outrageous luck or flashes of genius? A bit of both perhaps, but it is worth
nothing that the outcomes wouldn't have been possible without either.
Before he came to Jaipur, Warne, who retired from one-day cricket in 2003,
had played only a couple of Twenty20 games for Hampshire, who he led for
couple of seasons, but it didn't take him to long to grasp the dynamics of
the shortest format. "Twenty20 is all about surprises," he said. "It's about
doing something that the opposition doesn't really expect." And with every
match, Warne's propensity for the unexpected has merely grown.
More inspirational has been the way Warne and he support staff have moulded
a team of bravehearts out of relative lightweights. Their only major current
international player is Graeme Smith. The batting is thin on paper; and the
franchise gambled on appointing Warne - whose antipathy towards professional
coaches is only too well known - head of the coaching team. It could have
all gone hopelessly wrong, as it did for the ICL, which appointed Brian
Lara, another mercurial genius, captain of their Mumbai team. Lara hardly
scored a run in the first season, and didn't play in the second tournament,
and his team disintegrated around his obvious lack of interest.
But Warne evidently still has a fire raging within him. Denied the captaincy
by a conservative Australian cricket board, which feared a public-relations
disaster if he was given the job, Warne led Hampshire with passion. In
Jaipur he has plunged himself into mentoring a young team with sense of a
mission. Every Rajasthan player you meet speaks about Warne's ability to
inspire and visualise, his positive thinking, and his human touch. Warne
hasn't so much imposed himself on the team as he has lifted it. In every
match Rajasthan have found a new hero.
Salunkhe was the one in the game against Punjab. "Mahela [Jayawardene] and
Yuvraj [Singh] were batting when Warne asked me to bowl," Salunkhe said. "I
was afraid - Mahela is such a good player of spin. Warne marched up to me
and said, 'Put your chest out, stand tall, be confident. I believe you can
get him. Tell me you can do it.'
"In the world there can be only one Taj Mahal. Similarly, there can only be
one Shane Warne."
Given Warne's position on professional coaches, Snape, who has a masters in
sports psychology, was initially wary of taking up a role under him. Those
apprehensions have since melted away and been replaced by admiration. "You
can study psychology for as long as you want, but he has lived it," Snape
says of Warne.
"Warnie would never use the p word, "psychology", but he lives it. He's a
great motivator. He's very passionate, he thinks very clearly. One of my big
points for the boys is to choose the strategy carefully with a cool head and
then commit wholeheartedly to it. Warnie exemplifies that in the way he
plays his cricket.
A hero per match: the likes of Yusuf Pathan have shone under Warne's
captaincy (c) Getty Images
He's got careers outside, in journalism and poker. This is a six-week
tournament that's very exciting for him. He's got a chance to leave a
legacy. That comes down to the personality again. Stockbrokers in London
earn millions - but they all want to feel part of something that's bigger
than them. Want to feel like they've created something. We all feel like
that at Rajasthan. There's no heritage, there's no black and white pictures
on the wall. It's a start-up. For someone like Warnie, who's done so much in
cricket, it's exciting to be able to say, 'We were part of that tournament.
And these are the stars that came up from it.' And he's shared his
knowledge, which is one of his great skills."
Rajasthan Royals are the most no-frills franchise in the IPL. They have no
Bollywood starts in their entourage, but they do possess a well-knit support
team. Apart from Snape, who contributes to planning and strategy, there is
Darren Berry, the assistant coach, who, in Warne's words, brings "a
structured approach to training".
Warne says that they have tried to be "the smartest, the cleverest team in
the competition". Snape says they want to the clearest-thinking team.
"Technically, the players aren't going to change over the six weeks, but
it's the ones who are going to have the clearest decision-making under
pressure who are going to do really well. That's the theme of our
discussions. Of course, we'd like our plans to work, but that's when the
real cricket starts - when your plan doesn't work and you've got to adapt."
Above all, Warne has been there to provide the bits of magic that only he
can. The Royals' dressing room is still heady with the 16 runs he blasted
off three balls from Andrew Symonds' final over against the Deccan Chargers,
but it is the dismissal of Mahendra Singh Dhoni in the game against Chennai
that will have made fans' eyes moist with nostalgia.
The first ball landed on leg and middle and spun past Dhoni's tentative bat.
Dhoni barely managed to keep out the next one, which pitched on nearly the
same spot and straightened. The third was floated just a bit more to draw
the batsman forward, and held back just a bit to ensure that it landed short
enough to spin and catch the edge. Even if Dhoni had missed it, he would
have been stumped. It was a sublime working-over, a piece of art.
Warne's and Rajasthan's unexpected success is both uplifting and reassuring.
It is a reaffirmation that old-fashioned cricket values and skills have
their place in the game's newest, and to many crassest, form.
Long may Warne continue to reign.
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