“Dhoni didn’t have much to say. But my cricket made a lot of progress a lot because I was being led by someone who didn’t tell me what to do.” – Lungi Ngidi
TELFORD VICE in Cape Town
OF all the 477.4 overs bowled in IPL finals only six have been scoreless. Lungi Ngidi owns one of those heroic half-dozens. He shared the new ball with Deepak Chahar for Chennai Super Kings against Sunrisers Hyderabad in Mumbai in the 2018 showdown and sent down six spotless deliveries to Kane Williamson in his second over on his way to figures of 4-1-26-1. Curiously, only half the bowlers in this club, founded by Makhaya Ntini in 2008, ended up on the winning side. Ngidi is among them. Here he recounts his experience of playing in the biggest game of the biggest cricket competition in the world:
South Africans never play in front of home crowds as big and as boisterous as those the IPL draws, a truth that would have been evident to Ngidi long before he helped CSK reach the final. Not just another game, then …
“Playing in any final is pretty nerve-racking, but it was probably one of the worst for me just knowing how many people were watching around the world and how many people were in the stadium. That’s why it would be one of the most exciting but also one of the most nerve-racking games for me. It felt different from the other matches I played because I knew what was on the line. When you’re still playing the group stages you don’t know where you’re going to end up. But once it gets to the play-offs you know either you win or you’re out. So there’s jitters. It’s not as easy to sleep. You can’t sit still. You’re playing the game in your head over and over. There’s a lot going on. There’s so much hype as the day approaches. There’s always a crowd of people at the hotel. It’s a pretty big day, but the best part is getting to the ground. Because then you know it’s pretty much gametime. It’s the waiting that kills you. The night before, you’re so anxious about what’s going to happen tomorrow you end up thinking about it so much that you forget what time it is. Eventually you realise and understand that you should probably get to bed!”
MS Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Ravindra Jadeja, Imran Tahir, Suresh Raina, Murali Vijay — CSK aren’t often short of big names, and 2018 was no different.
“Among the senior CSK players I was close to Faf, having played under him as a captain. I found it easier to communicate with him, but it wasn’t difficult to talk with all the other big names. They give insight where they feel they should. That was the most helpful thing about having so many senior guys around. They know that they don’t need to give too much information, but they will give you what they can when they feel you need it. I was never bombarded with information. And if I needed anything I was always more than welcome to ask them. It was a very comfortable environment. Dhoni, for instance, didn’t have much to say. But my cricket made a lot of progress a lot because I was being led by someone who didn’t tell me what to do. I think he captains on gut feel, or how he thinks the game is going to go. So he’ll change the field sometimes, and as player you need to understand where his mind his — where he wants you to bowl — just by the change in the field. That helped my game grow a lot in terms of me not needing to be told what to do when the situation changes. I can see for myself by the movement in the field what balls I need to bowl and what balls I shouldn’t bowl. That helped me a great deal.”
Dhoni had played in seven of the 10 previous finals, Raina in six, and Bravo, Jadeja and Vijay in four each. Did that calm the situation or serve to ramp up the tension?
“The mood was different on the day of the final. There were a lot of senior players and a lot of them had played in finals, even World Cup finals. They had pretty much done it all in cricket. They were very relaxed. It was actually unsettling at times because I didn’t know if they were taking it seriously! That’s how calm they were, and it rubbed off on me. I thought to myself, ‘You know what, you’ve got nothing to worry about’. We had played good cricket leading up to that point. So I knew that if I just kept doing what I had been doing everything would be OK.”
How about that outrageous over to Williamson?
“You set yourself targets. Within two overs in the powerplay I don’t want to go for more than 15. I went for eight runs in my first over, which is pretty decent in T20 cricket in the powerplay. In my second over, after the first two dot balls, my gameplan started to change — I knew Kane [Williamson] would either try to attack or get off strike. But I got more dot balls. After the fourth ball I just wanted to close out the over well. Another two dot balls and it was a maiden. I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time. I was just happy that I had gotten through the over unscathed! He could have put the last ball through the covers but it was fielded. It was a relief, but I also wasn’t too worried. Even if he got four, it’s obviously not something you want but I’ll take it in that kind of match situation.”
Ngidi has yet to reach 20 in an innings in any form of the game at senior level. So the prospects of him winning the game with the bat weren’t good. Happily for him and CSK, it didn’t come to that: Shane Watson’s undefeated 117 guided them to an eight-wicket triumph with nine balls unbowled. A match earlier, things hadn’t been that uncomplicated.
“As the game went on I thought about the possibility of having to bat. In the playoff, also against Sunrisers, Faf finished it off for us. We needed six off the last over and I was in next. That was nerve-racking because I hadn’t batted in the rest of the tournament. I pretty much didn’t need my batting kit — I used to take only my bowling spikes to training. You don’t want to walk in as the No. 11 with the game on the line in the final! Besides, I had done my job earlier: come on batsmen, do your job now. I’m very grateful and very happy it didn’t come down to me having to bat to win the game.”
How hearty was the party afterwards?
“Our celebration was very shortlived because we had to catch a flight three or four hours after the game. So it was get the trophy, take a few pictures, have a few drinks with the guys, sing the team song, and then we were out.”
Ngidi’s economy rate of 6.00 for the 2018 tournament is the third-best in the history of the event, and he was the only seamer in the top five in those terms that year.
“I was successful in that tournament because I was able to adapt very quickly. People always talk about Indian wickets and how well the Indian batsmen play on them, but the video analysis we had done — Eric Simons, our coach, was fantastic — helped me keep it all very simple. Sometimes, as a youngster, you try to do too much too early. But Eric broke it down for me in basic terms: it’s the IPL, so batsmen will try to come after you. You’ve got to have gameplans to counter that. I bowled hard back-of-a-length, slower ball, and yorker. Basically, I was only thinking about those three balls. The main main thing for a bowler is when to bowl which ball. I think I got that spot on during that tournament, which is why I was able to do pretty well.”
Ngidi turned 24 on March 29. Thus he would seem to have several more IPL campaigns to look forward to once the global coronavirus lockdown ends and something like normality resumes.
“I’d love to go back. I enjoyed the Chennai changeroom, just being around those guys. They were so competitive. It was really good for my cricket, a step in the right direction. I got a lot of confidence from that and I can only see my game growing by going back there.”
First published by Cricbuzz.
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