Mumbai: “Has hitting the right lengths been your secret sauce?” Kagiso Rabada, this season’s highest Powerplay wicket-taker in the Indian Premier League, is asked.
“Yes,” he replies. A long pause follows. It’s Rabada’s way of conveying that he has nothing more to add.
“Cricket is simple. Bowl top-of-off with the odd bouncer thrown in. That’s what you get taught, right?” the Gujarat Titans pace ace then answers rhetorically.
“And then you work your way around it,” he adds. “It hasn’t changed all these years. At the same time, it’s also trying to evolve your game. Coming up with another slower ball and executing what you want to because T20 is a game of pressure. So, you actually want to execute when you need to. You have seen Bumrah do it. Bhuvneshwar, Hazlewood, Jofra, that’s what it is about…executing when you need to.”
“Who has been one of the better batters this IPL?” Rabada asks. “Your captain (Shubman Gill),” he is told.
“Okay. And what does he do?” he further asks. “Sticks to his strengths in the Powerplay,” is the answer. “Exactly the same thing that bowlers do as well,” says the South Africa spearhead.
In a brief interview, Rabada tries to impress upon the world that the rules of fast bowling haven’t changed all that, despite batters constantly being on the offensive.
“It’s been wonderful to bowl with Siraj,” Rabada says of his GT new-ball partner. The two have made it a habit of sharing all six overs in the Powerplay, game after game. While Rabada has been among the wickets more often, Siraj has squeezed the scoring rate. “He’s hitting his straps, and when he’s hitting his straps, I am forced to hit mine. We are just feeding off each other. We are bonding a bit off the field as well, playing some card games and stuff.”
Rabada and Siraj have been executing GT’s well-documented strategy of aggressive Test match length bowling, and hunting as a pack of four fast bowlers—Jason Holder, Prasidh Krishna, Arshad Khan and Ashok Sharma doing more of the same in the middle overs. In a season where fours and sixes have packed the highlight reels, GT bowlers have been crashing the party.
“It’s incredibly lovely to see how Ashish (Nehra) has led us. The way he has cleared our minds has been fantastic. A lot of credit goes to him. He’s been great to work with,” says Rabada of GT’s head coach and former India fast bowler.
With play-travel-play the routine during the IPL season, does an elite pacer like Rabada still take out time for conversations to upskill?
“You divide your attention efficiently,” he says. “There are times when you are looking to evolve, other times when you just look at game plans. You leave some time to explore as well. You understand how to fit that time in, segmenting your time for different types of chats. You can’t do one thing overly and not prioritise the other. We definitely have those chats because we are all looking to improve.”
With GT, table toppers after Tuesday’s win over Sunrisers, well placed to make the playoffs, another wicket to his 16 will make Rabada’s tally the highest ever in a season during the Powerplay. The one scalp he hasn’t had so far and been attacked is Rajasthan Royals’ 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi.
“Such fast hands. Excellent hands. And he is fearless,” Rabada praises the flavour of the season. “He is really exciting for the game and the IPL, making the headlines. Hopefully he has a great career.”
Any personal targets? “I just want to wake up the next day to see the sun,” says the Johannesburg-born, whose first name in the Setswana language means ‘tranquility’ and ‘serenity’.