Weekly Sports Newsletter: Not Virat, nor Dhoni, captain Rohit is more Warne
Back in 2008, the time the first Indian Premier League had ended, Shane Warne was enshrined into Rajasthan’s crowded horical Hall of Fame of righteous warriors known for their extraordinary valour. At Jaipur’s Sawai Mansingh Stadium, the Rajasthan Royals captain was a folk deity, the protagon of many inspirational tales – some real, some exaggerated.
Once an old hand at Rajasthan Cricket Association (RCA) explained what Warne’s unique ‘one-on-one pep-talks’, given minutes after the toss, meant to the players. He had offered a prior apology for the inappropriate analogy he was to use to describe Warne’s method to brainwash his rag-tag side into believing that they were the best.
The Aussie legend, he would say, would move around the team circle, lovingly holding the heads of each player, staring deep into their eyes and shouting out the role he had scripted for them for the day. “It was like he was preparing a ‘fidayeen squad’,” the RCA official said in a hushed tone. “Not in a bad way, you know what I mean.”
Those words famously worked. In that inaugural IPL season that had Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh and even Mahendra Singh Dhoni as captains, Warne finished as the topper. He was easily the brightest in that meritorious class, the quickest to grasp the new format.
His intellect, awareness and toughness were infectious. Rookies from that Class of 2008 went on to play for India – Ravindra Jadeja, Yusuf Pathan, Siddharth Trivedi. Shane Watson’s journey of becoming an IPL GOAT (Greatest of All Time) too started under Warne.
Before the world saw Dhoni as the undisputed T20 oracle, Warne was IPL’s original mastermind. He had his own leadership style. The indulgent big brother one day, a foul-mouthed hard taskmaster the next. Wearing his crown lightly, remaining approachable despite the aura, Warne was the ultimate players’ captain.
Is there any Indian captain with Warne-like quality? Rohit Sharma’s name comes to mind immediately. As was the case with Warne’s Rajasthan Royals, the central square is a busy town square or village chaupal when India take the field under their new captain these days.
There are conversations and interactions happening all the time. If not shouting general instructions to the team, Rohit is having bilateral talks with bowlers in conspiratorial tones. A quick word with the bowler, a subtle signal to the fielder, a probing look at the wicket-keeper or an occasional wave to the dug-out.
Warne hated the modern-day mumbo-jumbo of sports coaching. In his initial discussions with the Rajasthan Royals management, he had said ‘I don’t need any shrink – I just don’t believe in them’. He was no fan of team-bonding sessions, never understood how living like a Bushman, singing team songs around a campfire or even wearing that Australia’s haloed crown, the Baggy Green cap, can sharpen one’s cricketing skills. In a nutshell, he hated everything John Buchanan, the Deepak Chopra of cricket coaching, stood for.
Warne was all informal interactions. Once he planned England batting lynchpin Graham Gooch’s dismissal with skipper Allan Border over beer. He was old-school, Warne didn’t depend on a white board and marker to express his plans. His battle plans were often drawn on the dining table with salt-shakers, ketchup and mustard bottles posing as fielders.
“Most of the best plans are hatched out of hours, so to speak, not at those silly team meetings. A plan can come from anywhere at any time and the more you sit around and talk the game with good cricket minds, the more amazing things happen. In a formal environment, they don’t happen, which is why I never liked team meetings because all you did was talk around in circles. They were a waste of time, because it was the same plan all the time: build pressure and hit the top of off-stump, with the occasional bouncer. Yeah, we get that. Now let’s go and chill,” Warne would write in his autobiography.
The other day during the Mohali Test against Sri Lanka, one was reminded of Warne. When India was coasting to an easy win, Rohit sat next to Kuldeep Yadav beyond the boundary line. The Chinaman wasn’t part of the game, he looked relaxed. The captain chose the moment to have a talk with him. The two seemed to be discussing strategy. It didn’t seem like a scheduled interaction, it wasn’t, as Warne called “a silly team meeting”. the time the camera moved to the action on field, Rohit was in the middle of an animated monologue and Yadav was nodding his head.
It’s no surprise that under Rohit’s shepherding, the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Surya Kumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan have been groomed for the India cap.
On the field too, there is a lot of Warne in Rohit. Among his more popular Instagram reels are the ones where he is giving a tongue-lashing to an erring fielder or bowler. The Aussie too didn’t hide his emotions when a team member did something he didn’t like. It didn’t matter if it was even one of his favourites. Once he asked Ravindra Jadeja, apparently his blue-eyed boy among Rajasthan Royals’ young turks, to walk all the way to the hotel after training – a punishment for being a habitual late-comer.
Warne and Rohit have other common threads. The two never had it easy for themselves. They would often get written off, blamed for throwing away the gift they were born with. They had their angst – Rohit regretted missing out on the 2011 World Cup, Warne longed for the Aussie captaincy. These setbacks made them sensitive towards the fringe players, the strugglers beyond the playing XI. Men like Warne and Rohit make better captains as they have seen cricket’s high and lows. They are better prepared to deal with a defeat. They find cricket’s uncertainties amusing. As the English love to say about the game – some days the pigeon, and some days the statue.
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Sandeep Dwivedi
National Sports Editor
The Indian Express
