“Sachin was injured, Harbhajan got banned and Sanath didn’t want to do it.” – Shaun Pollock explains how he became an IPL captain.
Telford Vice / Cape Town
IS anything more Indian than the IPL? To some Indians that would be a provocation: yoga, Bollywood and richly varied cuisine, for a start. But, just as it would be arrogant to expect the world to know who or what adho mukha svanasana, Shah Rukh Khan or roti are, it would be naïve to assume everyone knows cricket existed in India before April 18, 2008.
Since that day, when Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders took to the Chinnaswamy to play the first IPL match, the tournament has done for cricket what slicers have done for bread. Bread that comes in loaves, that is. So not roti. Nor indeed chapati, naan or paratha.
Just as true is that Bollywood blares with blingy bombast on screens far from India in the thrall of people who are anything but Indian, and that yoga has, in Westernised countries, been bastardised into exercise muddled with pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo, aromatherapy candles and incense and incongruous statues of buddha.
But while you can take the IPL out of India — as was done completely in 2009 and 2020 and partly in 2014 and 2021 — there is no taking India out of the IPL. Even its satellite tournament, South Africa’s SA20, is more Indian than South African. Indeed, the fact that all six of the SA20’s franchises are IPL-owned is an important part of its ability to attract sponsors, broadcasters and spectators.
The IPL has changed cricket in vast and irrevocable ways. So much so that it can be difficult to remember a time when these few weeks weren’t central to the global game’s annual calendar. Whether watching in person or from afar, it’s barely possible for cricketminded non-Indians to imagine anything more utterly and entirely Indian than the IPL.
Except that that has never been true. Foreigners have been intrinsic to the tournament since its inception. Its first winning captain was Shane Warne, its first player of the series Shane Watson, its first leading runscorer Shaun Marsh and its first leading wicket-taker Sohail Tanvir.
Admittedly, 2008 is the only year outsiders have swept those boards. But Indians have dominated only twice: MS Dhoni, Sachin Tendulkar — both as player of the series and top batter — and Pragyan Ojha in 2010, and Dhoni, Harshal Patel — as player of the series and top bowler — and Ruturaj Gaikwad in 2021.
A foreigner has been named the IPL’s best player in a dozen editions of the tournament, or four times as often as an Indian. An outsider has scored more runs than any local 10 times compared to five by homegrown batters. The balance is closer in bowling, where foreigners have claimed the prize eight times and Indians seven.
Of the 405 players who were up for auction for this year’s IPL, 132 were not Indian. That’s just less than a third. The same was true of 42.15%, or 51 of 121, of the support staff — everyone from chief executives to lead and assistant masseurs to Gujarat Titans’ “throwdown specialist”, Ashok Sadh — named at the time of the auction.
But playing is at its core an individual pursuit, and the spotlight doesn’t linger on coaches when things go well or badly. Captaincy asks different questions of those blessed or cursed to be handed its chalice. Not only do they have to play well — better than their peers to escape being seen as keeping their places only because they are captains — they are expected to inspire others to play as well, if not better. They are also, at some level, coaches.
What might captaining a team on cricket’s biggest modern stage mean for those who have this potential greatness thrust on them — particularly if they are not Indian? It’s a question Shaun Pollock never should have been asked. He led South Africa in 119 matches across the formats, an ICC World XI in three ODIs and an Africa XI in two more, but he was an accidental IPL captain.
“It was in the first year, so I didn’t have a clue about any of the players and because of that I was a bit skeptical about captaining,” Pollock told Cricbuzz. “But Sachin was injured, Harbhajan got banned and Sanath didn’t want to do it. That was why I did it.”
Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai Indians’ appointed captain, missed the first half of the inaugural IPL with a groin problem. Harbhajan Singh was given the job in Tendulkar’s absence, but suspended for the rest of the tournament for slapping his teammate, Sreesanth, after the third match. Mumbai lost all three games. Whether Sanath Jayasuriya really was unwilling to step into the breach is not known, but it seems clear Pollock made a positive difference: his team were beaten by 10 wickets by Deccan Chargers in his first game at the wheel, but they reeled off a hattrick of wins under him before Tendulkar arrived to preside over another three consecutive victories.
“The challenge is understanding the locals; knowing their skills and their strengths, and trying to understand how you can get the best out of them,” Pollock said of his IPL captaincy experience. “Communication can be difficult, but I think that’s changed a lot. International players who captain now really do understand their squad. They’ve probably been with them for a couple of years, so I don’t think that’s as big a challenge.
“Conditions were difficult to read. I relied on what the locals would say about pitches and how they might or might not play. Also, in those days there wasn’t much analysis. So I used to rely on what they knew about the other local guys we were playing against. These days, with all the coaches and advisory staff that teams have, the analysts give you a pretty good idea about where to bowl and what fields to set.”
JP Duminy led the then Delhi Daredevils in all 14 of their matches in 2015 and in two the next year. He piloted Delhi to only six wins, but for him leadership was about more than results. “One of the keys for me was investing in the culture of whichever country I was in,” Duminy, who also played in the PSL and the CPL, told Cricbuzz. “In India it was about trying to communicate with the local players as best I could, and trying to find a common cause in what we were playing for. Ultimately it’s to try and win the competition, but it’s also about investing in something deeper — understanding what makes local flavour tick, and forming and developing sound and sincere relationships. Leadership is about not necessarily needing to be in charge, but getting the best out of the people who are in your charge. That’s a significant quote I saw from [American author and inspirational speaker] Simon Sinek, which I think applies.”
Duminy saved some of his attention for the energy he could feel from the stands: “There are rituals that happen in India outside of playing that we need to understand; how passionate the fans are, and the importance of trying to find some way to connect with them. It can be overwhelming, but having the patience to do that is a big part in earning support for the team you’re playing for.”
No IPL has been without at least one foreign appointed captain. In 2011 half of the 10 teams were led by non-Indians. Two years later the foreigners were in the majority: they were in control of five of the nine sides.
But Indians have piloted teams to triumph 12 times, which is as it should be considering they had captained 87 of the 126 editions of the teams before this year. Of the internationals only Warne in 2008, Adam Gilchrist a year later and David Warner in 2016 know what winning the IPL as a captain feels like. Rohit Sharma has been there five times, Dhoni four times, Gautam Gambhir twice and Hardik Pandya once.
This year Warner, who is in charge of Delhi Capitals, has the chance to become the first foreigner to lead a team to the title twice. RCB have Faf du Plessis at the helm and the buck stops with Aiden Markram at Sunrisers Hyderabad. But Sharma and Dhoni are around and in search of yet more glory, and Pandya is back to try and repeat last year’s feat with Gujarat.
Is anything more Indian than the IPL? Maybe. But nothing anywhere in cricket is as magnificent.
Cricbuzz
Bulletproof Truth 