The X-factor makes the difference

here's a quick one for all you to ponder over while you think about all the different ways in which this year's ipl is different. the top two teams lost on saturday and there were key performances from abhishek raut, sudeep tyagi and shadab jakati. if you were part of a quiz show and were asked what these three names did you might have been forgiven for not saying 'cricket'. but they are doing well and looking good. there must be a reason.

t20 is not a great respecter of reputation or tradition-that is why it connects so well to younger people around the world. the longer the game the greater the need for traditional skills, the shorter the game the greater the rewards for initiative, flair and explosive skills. a lot of young men in india, and indeed everywhere, have them but they need to be identified and tapped. having done that i believe we need to go one step further. we need to believe in them or, at any rate, give them the impression that we believe in them.

that is what extraordinary captains do and that is why the rajasthan royals are playing well over where they should be playing if you did a player by player analysis. we do that with teams sometimes-see how they stack up man for man. it is not a bad thing to do as a preliminary exercise but you need to include an x-factor-how driven are the players, how empowered are they by their captain? the last is crucial and maybe one of the x-factors as we try to put together a captaincy rating into the castrol index is to see how unheralded players are doing. or maybe to see how many of them are playing above expectation. it is a preliminary though but i am now more convinced than ever before, after watching the knight riders and seeing the royals that leadership and empowerment are the key factors in successful teams.