'Teams are taking Indian domestic talent more seriously now'

Rahul Dravid talks about the change in attitude towards T20, and how the dynamics of IPL auctions has changed over the years

Interview by Gaurav Kalra  |  

Play 22:49

You are a T20 professional in many ways now. Do you see yourself that way when you get into these set-ups?
I have been involved in every single IPL so far in different capacities, as a captain and then a player, then captain again for a different franchise, then being a mentor for a couple of franchises as well. So I have actually seen quite a lot of it and in different kinds of environments and different kinds of situations. It's been an educative process for me as well, it's a constant learning process and it's fascinating for me to see how much it's changed and grown. I just keep learning every single time I go into an IPL.

Some people believe that T20 is a form of the game that draws from cricket but it isn't actually cricket. Is it a different sport altogether? Do you buy into that argument?
You can theorise it in any which way you want. T20 cricket is still played with 11 players, with bat and ball. For the players actually playing the game, they recognise that it is very, very different. It is different to Test cricket, it is different even to one-day cricket. A lot of things that happen in T20 cricket, you can't easily correlate and say this is related to one-day cricket. Players who do well in Test cricket or one-day cricket don't necessarily do well in T20 cricket and vice versa. You'll have people who will have crossovers as well. People are realising that it is unique. It's something different, but to go so far as to say it's a completely different game, you know, I wouldn't go so far as that.

Going back to India's World T20 win in 2007, what was the early thought process like?
I don't think anyone knew what to expect. People had seen some of the success that had happened in England in their T20 [tournament] - the crowds, the kind of atmosphere, it was still seen as entertainment.

You guys [senior players] decided not to go for that World T20 in South Africa…
After a long season and a long Test and one-day series [in England], a lot of the senior players didn't go to the World T20, which probably was a good thing in hindsight because India ended up winning it. I don't think anyone knew what to expect of it and how big this could actually become. At the end of the first year of the IPL, you could sense the conversations around it. People started saying, this is here to stay and this is big. I think one of the things that has definitely changed over the course of the nine IPLs is the way players approach T20 cricket and these tournaments. When the players came back for the second year of the IPL, they realised that people are going to watch you and there is going to be so much importance to each and every T20 game, so we better come prepared.

"I just keep learning every single time I go into an IPL" © BCCI

One of the aspects of the IPL is picking the team and there is a unique process to do it during the auction. Would you have done things a bit differently when picking the first Royal Challengers Bangalore team?
You can look at every single auction and say that I wish I could have done this and wish I could have done that. One of the lessons that I have learned over nine IPLs is actually not to do that. All you can do is hope to be as well prepared as you possibly can, have a basic strategy and ideas about what kind of team you want and the conditions that you want to play in and then have a certain amount of flexibility about it. You can't be rigid about who you are going to get and who you are not going to get. With the first RCB team, I know we got a lot of criticism for the team that was picked. But look at the players we had in that team and the kind of T20 careers they went on to have - Jacques Kallis, who went on to be a pretty successful T20 player, much sought after by a lot of IPL teams, Zaheer Khan, Ross Taylor, Cameron White, Dale Steyn. There was Virat Kohli on that team, how can I forget?

There was Rahul Dravid in that team as well.
There were some serious players on that team as well. Sometimes you can have a good team and you cannot necessarily perform in an IPL, and I think that's the nature of this tournament. You can look at a team on paper and think it's good but sometimes if the pieces don't fit together, you'll not succeed, and that's what's becoming more and more clear in T20 cricket.

Do you see the two versions of limited-overs cricket as very different when approached tactically?
I think they are very different when approached tactically. There is a rhythm and a tempo to a one-day game that's very different to that of a T20 game. Just the mindset and the thinking around the T20 game is very different to a one-day game, where you have time to build an innings. But in T20 cricket, sometimes each over is important, but you can lose two or three overs in a game and actually lose a game. You don't have as much time in T20 cricket to get things wrong and bounce back.

"The depth of conversation that's happening about the T20 game is not happening anywhere else, which is what makes the T20 game unique"

As a batsman your strategy and mindset around the T20 game is that you have only 20 overs to bat out, so you have an opportunity to take a lot more risks. As a bowler, you just have 24 balls to bowl and every one of those 24 balls actually matters. There is not so much time in T20 cricket to set up the batsman. You are more bowling to restrict. We always talk about taking wickets in T20 cricket, but you know that the value of a good economical over at a certain stage in the game could lead to wickets later on. It's just finding that balance, but they are two different games tactically, and I think auctions are quite dynamic and they sort of vary all the time. Everyone goes in with a strategy, tactics and certain ideas.

How much has auction strategy started to become a really important factor in this, given the learnings of the first few seasons of the IPL?
I think the uniqueness about the auction is the limited amount of purse that you have. The fact that you can only play four overseas players [in the XI] and you have got seven Indian players to fill. The good rule that came in two or three years ago, which meant that all Indian domestic players go in to the auction, has actually changed things. Suddenly everyone has access to a lot of these young Indian domestic talents and it does become important and you can see how teams are taking it a lot more seriously now. Teams know the kind of players they want. It's very rare to find young Indian talents who are unheard of and you can pick out of nowhere for really cheap. You might find the odd outlier - take the case of Krunal Pandya, or M Ashwin. There are no cheap buys anymore. There is a lot more knowledge about young Indian domestic talent than there was three or four years ago.

That's the only reason the prices go up because if more than one team is interested…
What you actually don't notice is that you might see only two teams bidding for someone, but it's actually three or four teams who could be interested. Taking the example of M Ashwin, there might have been seven teams actually interested in him, at different price ranges. It's just the team that was willing to go one better than the other that eventually ended up getting someone like him, or any other young player.

"Everyone goes in [to an auction] with a strategy, tactics, certain ideas but you have got to think on your feet" © Getty Images

On your personal experiences of being at these auctions, with RCB and then with Rajasthan Royals, where you came in with this experience and knowledge - how were they fundamentally different and can you remember how you approached a player for instance at a Rajasthan Royals auction which was different to how you would have viewed it when you were at RCB?
At Rajasthan the constraints were definitely there in terms of the budgets that you had, so in a way it was quite clear, you weren't always necessarily competing for some of the big players, you weren't even looking at the top stars, because you knew that would be completely out of your range. It was an interesting process and I think it's a great learning process.

Anything that you can remember for Rajasthan Royals in particular?
We went up to almost five crores [approximately US$741,000 at current rates] for someone like Mitchell Starc. A good example at this year's auction would be someone like a Carlos Brathwaite [INR 4.2 crore]. Who would have thought that he would go for the price he did? But Kolkata Knight Riders, who have a team in the CPL [Trinbago Knight Riders], knew about him, and the people who are looking at the Delhi team knew about him. I think auctions are quite dynamic and they sort of vary all the time - everyone goes in with a strategy, tactics, certain ideas but you have got to think on your feet. It's simple as that.

In this auction, with Delhi Daredevils there was comment from outside as to why so much money was being spent on Pawan Negi, Carlos Brathwaite, Chris Morris and players of that kind. But clearly on the outside there isn't as much understanding as within the franchise of why these players are being valued in the ways that they are. Can you throw some light on what goes on?
I wouldn't say there is no knowledge outside but there is not as much knowledge. There are people who'll make comments like, why is he doing this, why is he doing that, without actually understanding the actual dynamics of why it happens. These conversations are not happening outside. They are not happening in television studios, as I have been in television studios. The depth of conversation that's happening about the T20 game within a team and within that environment is not happening anywhere else, which is what makes the T20 game unique.

"You can look at a team on paper and think it's good but sometimes if the pieces don't fit together, you'll not succeed, and that's becoming more and more clear in T20 cricket"

There was a lot of talk on the day before the auction of Martin Guptill and Usman Khawaja, who were both in great white-ball form. But no one raised the paddle. These are guys of value, why aren't people picking them?
They are very good white-ball players, but you have got to find a spot for them in the team. If you already have that many batsmen, how were you going to fit in another batsman? So you will be looking for somebody else or some other skill might be more valuable to you. One of the things that tends to happen a lot in the IPL is that teams value subcontinental experience quite a lot. There are injuries and stuff, and you might have a Guptill or Khawaja being picked.

It might seem strange to other people on the outside as to why franchises don't pick these players, and I think you'll never get everything right. If you start picking holes in every single thing, you'll find enough holes, it's obvious. I mean it's very easy to do that, but I would say that in general I find that most IPL teams actually do have a good think around a lot of the things that they do. They might not always get it right.

Once the squad is built after this auction, does it create a challenging dynamic because there are certain players who have this high valuation because of what happens at the auction?
To some extent it does. Sometimes players also may not understand the dynamics of an auction - they don't understand why certain players had gone for so much money and why someone else has gone for so less. Players are getting better at it, they are also beginning to understand that sometimes the dynamics of an auction are quite unique. It's just natural, it's human tendency and you can't take away from that, but I think it's just a question of trying to manage it in the environment. I think that's what leadership is about.

Have you ever been in instances where you had difficulties handling situations of this kind, where players have felt they just deserve more value?
I can't say that there has been so much of an issue around money. You might go to the CEO or they might go somewhere else and have that conversation. One of the big challenges around the IPL are that you have squads of 23-25 and only 11 can play. You have only four foreigners who can play at any given point of time. So that has more of an effect on a team rather than just money. I think after some time, at least to the coaches and to the mentors, I don't think people bring up the money issue so much. At least that's my experience.

Watch and read part two of the interview here

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Gaurav Kalra is a senior editor at ESPNcricinfo. @gauravkalra75

 

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