Batsmen of the Karnataka Ranji team were told to go for big scores while the bowlers were given the green-signal to go ahead and take 20 wickets. In other words, coach Jagadeesh Arun Kumar inculcated the habit of positive thinking into the side and as a result they became the domestic champions after a drought of 15 years. Amit Chaudhary spoke to the him
Conventional wisdom says that in cricket’s longest format, winning sessions is important but for Jagadeesh Arun Kumar, it’s all about staying one step ahead. Before the Ranji Trophy season, he told his players to go for the kill from the word go. Instead of focusing on winning sessions, he asked them to go for wins, sessions would automatically be won.
He was right. Four months and 11 matches later, Karnataka’s 15-year wait for the Ranji Trophy title was over. JAK, the nickname he goes by, had outwitted every other coach in the country to guide his side to their seventh title.
“Sometimes when you go session by session, you tend to compromise on certain sessions. In cricket, even one bad session can take away the game from you. So I thought the mind set should be like going for the win instead of winning session by session. When you go for win, you don’t think about first innings lead, you are supposed to get it. There is nothing so great about first innings. So it works like that,” Arun, Karnataka’s batting coach, said of the change in team’s approach.
“I remember when we won the Ranji Trophy (in late 90s), we used to go for win straightaway because once you go for win, you are thinking positively. So what we decided this year was that whichever team we would play, home or away, we would go straightaway for win. That way the mindset was completely positive. Bowlers were mentally prepared to pick up those 20 wickets and the batsmen knew that they had to score big in the first innings to go for an outright win. Half of the job is done when the players are mentally ready,” he added.
The change in mindset reflected on the field too. This season, Karnataka won seven out of eleven matches, a domination that no other team has shown in the recent past. Batsmen scored 15 centuries — the most by any side. Three of them came from Karun Nair (22), who made his mid-season debut against Punjab. 21-year-old lokesh Rahul was season’s second-best scorer with 1033 runs and made three of his four hundreds in this season. Medium-pacer HS Sharath, who made his debut last season, had 32 scalps, while newcomer leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal scalped 18 wickets.
“That happened because nobody looked for scoring less than a double century. I am happy that the boys understood the importance of scoring 100s, 200s or 300s. Everyone started believing that if the other guy can get a double, why can’t IIJ So that kind of healthy competition and cricketing culture has made our dressing room very competitive.
“The boys should know that if they want to play for India, they have to win Ranji Trophy. It’s not easy to play for the country if you don’t win. One odd guy may play but if you want four or five guys to play for India, like earlier seven players from Karnataka were in the Indian team — that happened because we won the Ranji Trophy — the you have to do well in the tournament. You got to constantly remind the players that you need to win Ranji Trophy,” JAK, who scored back-to-back hundreds in the Ranji Trophy finals for the victorious Karnataka in 1997-98 and 1998-99, pointed out.
The credit for this success also goes to Anil Kumble-led Karnataka Cricket Association (KCA) for their vision. Ahead of the 2012-13 season, the KCA decided to divide coaching responsibilities. JAK became the batting coach and MAK (Mansur Ali Khan) was given the duty as the bowling coach. “…but that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to the bowlers. I talk to the bowlers and tell them the mindset of a batsman. Same way Mansur, who was a bowler, tells the batsmen what the bowlers will be thinking in a particular situation. So we shared a lot of things. Certainly we didn’t cross our boundaries but we both discussed with each other before talking to a player,” Arun said.
They also decided to introduce more youngsters in the team. As many as six players made their debut this season. It was a big risk since experience matters a lot in first-class cricket. But for Karnataka, things weren’t moving forward for the last 15 years and changes needed to be made.
“They are youngsters but they were pretty experienced because they played a lot of junior cricket together. They played under-25 for a couple of years and after under-25, next step is Ranji Trophy. All of them had performed very consistently before getting their chances in Ranji Trophy. So we picked the guys who were in top form, whose confidence levels were really high. They carried their confidence into Ranji Trophy too,” Arun explained.
Having played over a 100 first-class matches and scoring 7,000 runs, Arun understands the pressure of first-class cricket and what it can do to debutantes. His most important task was to make youngsters comfortable in the dressing room and Arun’s easy going nature came to his aid.
“I am not a dictator kind of a coach. I am pretty easy going with the boys and I make them feel welcomed in the team. And seniors were also very nice to them. I, as a coach, am not very demanding. I kept things simple and gave the guys confidence because it’s a coach’s job to take off the pressure from the players. They already are under a lot of pressure. Both MAK and I did that. We kept things simple and gave them confidence. I was positive that juniors will do well and they knew I have confidence in them. That made a big difference.”
The Ranji Trophy champions next play Irani Trophy match against Rest of India and JAK has promised to go with the same go-for-win approach and said “I have a very good feeling that we’ll win that also.”