Gaikwad shelves caution to take the next step in his T20 evolution

In the lead-up to the match between Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings, Aaron Finch suggested that the Delhi pitch resembled a "dry riverbed with jigsaw-puzzle-type cracks". The ball didn't turn that much, but it stopped on the batters regularly. Deepak Chahar later said it was a "160 wicket". But Ruturaj Gaikwad and Devon Conway, like they have often done this season, put up a batting clinic to propel CSK to 223 for 3 and seal their spot in the playoffs, perhaps even the second spot on the table.

Let's talk about Gaikwad. He had started his IPL career as an anchor who would allow others around him to bat at higher strike rates. In the past, he would only take the lead if he made it to the second half of the innings. His powerplay strike rates in his first three seasons were 100, 113.41 and 112.03.

In IPL 2023, Gaikwad has shelved the caution and gone harder in the early exchanges, as his powerplay strike rate of 147.17 indicates. Only Ishan Kishan (147.57), Faf du Plessis (167.83) and Yashasvi Jaiswal (175.24) have better powerplay strike rates than Gaikwad this IPL among batters who have faced at least 150 balls during this phase.

At spin-friendly Chepauk, where Gaikwad had never played an IPL game before this season, that strike rate has jumped to 158.71. The ability to adapt to conditions on the fly against both pace and spin has even vaulted him back into the national reckoning.

It was on show in what was a must-win game for CSK on Saturday afternoon. When Axar Patel pushed out a full ball - by no means a wide half-volley - outside off, Gaikwad stretched out, opened the face of the bat and pumped him over extra cover with the intended turn. When Khaheel Ahmed and Anrich Nortje tried to tuck him up with short balls, he dealt with them as confidently.

Even after the powerplay, Gaikwad continued to attack. The passage of play against Kuldeep Yadav, in particular, highlighted Gaikwad's evolution as a T20 batter. Kuldeep had just found some grip with his wrong'un, drawing a toe-ended mis-hit over extra-cover. When the left-arm wristspinner tried to find more grip by tossing the ball up, other batters, including the previous version of Gaikwad, might have sat back and just tapped it. But this version of Gaikwad brought both brawn and brain to launch Kuldeep for three successive sixes down the ground - the long-on and long-off boundaries are smaller than the square boundaries in Delhi.

"Playing the 50th game for this franchise, [it] couldn't get better," Gaikwad said after collecting the Player-of-the-Match award. "Really grateful and thankful for this wonderful franchise for backing me throughout. I think the wicket was holding up a little bit, but it was a bit difficult to hit the fast bowlers.

"With the spinners, we have a chance because the straight boundaries are slightly shorter. In Chennai, there are always big boundaries, so you have to rotate the strike. Here you can take that extra risk of hitting it for six, and once we set a platform, with Shivam Dube to come in, Mahi [MS Dhoni] bhai to come in, Jaddu [Ravindra Jadeja] to come in, we have that power. So back yourself and just go for it."

CSK's batting coach Mike Hussey had spoken glowingly of Gaikwad's evolution last month.

"It's been amazing to watch him develop since he was first here at CSK to where he is," Hussey said. Now he's such a self-aware player. He has a great understanding about his game and what he wants to improve. He has a beautiful all-round game, and he plays good cricket shots, and he is slowly adding more power to his game. He is making it very difficult for bowlers to bowl to him because he can hit even good balls for fours or sixes as well.

"He is a brilliant player. T20 can cater to different types of players. It can cater to brute force, the Andre Russell types, and the beautiful classical players like Ruturaj, who can still score at a very high strike rate as well by playing good cricket shots all around the ground."

The CSK management takes a lot of pride in the progress of Gaikwad. When they snapped him up for his base price of INR 20 lakh in the IPL 2019 auction, Gaikwad was only in his second full season at Maharashtra and had played just five T20s. He is now one of the mainstays in the CSK batting line-up and perhaps a future captaincy candidate.

"In cricket, you say you can play your way, but he can play according to what the demand of the game is," Dhoni recently said of Gaikwad at an event in Chennai. "Over the years he has evolved and as Mo [Moeen Ali] said, he's very calm and he doesn't speak a lot. So, at times, initially it was difficult to assess whether he was under pressure or he's not under pressure because he was quite the same (laughs)."

Once, another Gaikwad with Maharashtrian roots, a certain Shivaji Rao, went on to become a household name in Chennai. That's some way away, but if this Gaikwad continues to expand his range even further, he could soon become a huge name in Chennai, too. He is certainly headed that way.