“Please ask him some questions. I think he’s feeling sleepy,” said Virat Kohli, evoking guffaws around the press conference room. “Yeah, I think I fell asleep,” KL Rahul responded immediately after having sat obediently listening to his captain answer every query thrown at him with great detail and expansive prose.
In Rahul’s defense, the press conference had gone on for longer than usual. It had been a chaotic day, even if the match itself had finished on a canter. The routine post-match presentations had lasted for around 15 minutes, where Rahul — still donning his wicket-keeping pads — had won the man-of-the-match award. Then came the Kumar Sangakkara ode-giving ceremony that went on for close to 45 minutes. So basically Rahul had got absolutely no time to even get a breather after having kept wickets, rather memorably, for more than a session for the first time in his Test career. No wonder he was sleepy. But to admit it right after you’ve sat next to your captain’s first interaction with the media after a Test win? That too when you are all of four Tests old?
In many ways, it spoke more about Kohli than it did about Rahul. It was a window into the first-ever brat-pack generation that now inherits the Indian dressing-room, and in which there seems to exist no overwhelming hierarchy. But this is isn’t a brat-pack that’s irreverently taking itself for granted. This is a brat-pack that seems to be growing up and maturing collectively. And as it’s been proved in Sri Lanka — save the disastrous final morning in Galle.
Hierarchy has a totally different meaning in a cricket dressing-room. There was hardly a cricketer who came into the dressing-room during the Sachin Tendulkarera who wasn’t asked, “How did it feel to share the dressing room with him?” at some point in the early stages of his career. Invariably, you would have heard him talk about being overawed and not knowing how to approach Tendulkar, or for that matter even the likes of Rahul Dravid or Anil Kumble.
But like Rahul revealed on Monday, in the present scenario a young cricketer doesn’t need to bother too much about hierarchy or getting intimidated. It’s not so much about feeling at home as it is about not feeling out of place.
“I understand how easy it is for a youngster to walk in and it feels comfortable when you are not looking up to people you know who are way older. We are all 25-26 here and you can go and talk to them. We have all played cricket together back in India at some stage or some junior level so we understand each other’s game very well,” he said.
You can see Rahul’s point. The likes of Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Umesh Yadav and R Ashwin broke into the domestic scene around the same time, even if the India cap came their way at different points over the last seven years. And this is probably the first time, the Indian dressing-room is bereft of a bunch of high-profile seniors — Harbhajan Singh seems to have blended into the mix, as is expected of him — that they need to look up to. No-one to refer to as ‘Paaji’ ‘Pa’ or ‘Bhai’. You can instead imagine a lot of ‘bros’ ‘brother mans’ and ‘buds’ flying around in a change room filled with inked bodies and fist-bumps for greetings.
“It’s definitely a different atmosphere under Virat. He’s like one of the guys. Being of the same age group helps and talking to him, discussing your problems becomes really easy. With Virat it seems ‘chilled out’,” Yadav had said after Kohli had led for the first-time ever in the Adelaide Test.
Captain ‘Chilled-Out’
Under the ‘chilled-out’ incumbent, the Indian team has also seemed to break away from the more measured methodical approach of the ‘cool’ predecessor. But while Dhoni managed the whole and soul of the decision-making process on the field, there is a slightly more collective approach to the leadership in Kohli’s regime. It is a ‘conscious effort’ he says, and it was very visible at the P Sara Oval.
Under the ‘chilled-out’ incumbent, the Indian team has also seemed to break away from the more measured methodical approach of the ‘cool’ predecessor. But while Dhoni managed the whole and soul of the decision-making process on the field, there is a slightly more collective approach to the leadership in Kohli’s regime. It is a ‘conscious effort’ he says, and it was very visible at the P Sara Oval.
If at one point it was Rohit Sharma adjusting deep mid-wicket, the next over you found Murali Vijay running all the way from first slip to Ishant Sharma at the top his mark with a suggestion. Ajinkya Rahane, when he’s not been catching every ball that comes his way, has also been a busy presence, constantly in Kohli’s ear.
“I want guys to be more expressive and I want guys to share their ideas with me. I want them to speak their mind because they are intelligent cricketers. As a batsman you can observe others and guess what they might be thinking. By speaking their mind, some ideas strike me and I might not be able to think about them because there is so much going on,” said Kohli.
The fact that a majority of the batsmen in particular have also led their state teams and also at ‘A’ level comes in handy too, as Kohli revealed.
“It’s a conscious decision we’ve made so the guys feel more responsible and more involved in the game throughout. It’s better than guys throwing the ball thinking he’s making the decision,” he added.
Little sense of entitlement
With the batting order still in a state of flux — the No.3 debate having quietened down a tad after Rahane’s century in Colombo at that position — the lack of hierarchy is sure to make it easier for batsmen to swap positions. Though it is unlikely that Kohli will move from his No.4 position, which he has justifiably made his own since taking over the captaincy, like we saw at the Oval, there mightn’t be a sense of entitlement — for now anyway— over any other spot in the middle-order.
With the batting order still in a state of flux — the No.3 debate having quietened down a tad after Rahane’s century in Colombo at that position — the lack of hierarchy is sure to make it easier for batsmen to swap positions. Though it is unlikely that Kohli will move from his No.4 position, which he has justifiably made his own since taking over the captaincy, like we saw at the Oval, there mightn’t be a sense of entitlement — for now anyway— over any other spot in the middle-order.
“Our main aim is to win a Test match and for that if someone has to chip in for one game and then miss out for the next it is understandable that whatever is done is for the betterment of the team. If a Pujara is asked to open in the next game because the team demands him to do so, he is pretty happy to do it,” said Kohli.
“I believe all these guys 7-8 of us are the ones who are going to play for a long time and they are getting confident. The more they learn, the quicker they learn, it will be better for us to be in these kinds of winning positions more often,” he added.
It’s still early days though in the Kohli captaincy reign, and he is sure to realize that the bonhomie and bromance in the dressing-room will not remain as gung-ho as it is now, and that the back-slapping could soon turn to finger-pointing if things aren’t going the team’s way. But the maturity was evident in the way the young team recovered from the shock loss in Galle to level the series.
And for now, the brat-pack seems to be in-sync.
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