SKIPPER SPEAKS

Captain Karthik calls for 'individuals to connect' as KKR's maiden mission

by Cricbuzz Staff • Published on

"As soon as the team was picked, deep down I knew I had an opportunity to lead the side." - Dinesh Karthik © Cricbuzz

Kolkata Knight Riders have experienced the full gamut in the first decade of the IPL. They've finished rank bottom of the league (2009) as well as won it (2012, 2014). They've been strong challengers as well as also-ran over the last 10 years, giving them an experience bank to dip into every time the league arrives at a crossroads. The forthcoming eleventh edition of the IPL in 2018 represents one such turning point. A big auction paved the way for the start of the next chapter in the tournament's evolution, one that the Knight Riders were happy to dive head first into, even if it involved a few risks.

Success and failure at the auction table are generally speculative. To that regard, only time will reveal if the franchise's heavy investment in the Under-19 Batch of 2018 will pay dividends. But the choice of Gautam Gambhir's successor will have more short-term consequences on the team's culture, their brand of cricket and the skipper's own ideologies. But unlike the choices at the auction table, the appointment of Dinesh Karthik as captain was not one of the aforementioned risks. Karthik afterall has a T20 win percentage of 72.20 (13 out of 18 matches won) - the highest of any of the captains in IPL 2018.

Karthik will find out that captaining an IPL franchise will be slightly different to leading his state side. He'll have to quickly get the international, Indian and the uncapped players - some of whom may have never communicated with some others - to pull together for a common cause. "I think first thing would be to connect all the boys together, one of the most important things is to get the whole group together and get the bonding going straightaway because it's a tournament played over 50 days and over a period of time, at some point you'll need all of us to stand together as a family to go into games and face difficult situations," Karthik said.

"One of the most important things is for the whole group to connect as individuals and at the same time have a bonding sort of a thing. That's the first step. In terms of building the team, it's a journey - we're going to be together for three years, we have the opportunity to chop and change a little bit every auction but the major auction is over and we know we're going to be having this team for the next three years. The most important thing is to get the best out of the players and then keep moving forward, with probably a little bit of chopping and changing if need be. Ideally, we don't want to be in that situation. At this stage, it's important to go into the tournament with this team and looking to do the best that we can."

The 32-year-old admitted that he anticipated that an opportunity to lead the side may arise given the composition of the squad, which had no high-profile captaincy candidates. Robin Uthappa, a regular performer at the franchise, was another candidate, but Karthik's most recent foray into the national setup perhaps tipped the debate in his favour. "As soon as the team was picked, deep down I knew I had an opportunity to lead the side. I was preparing for it mentally and waiting for an opportunity and when they offered it to me, I was more than happy to take it," Karthik said.

"Let's be fair to them, when they picked the team they didn't pick a captain and then pick the team. They picked the team and hoped that they'll find the right captain from the mix. The good thing is that they've had a few choices to choose from. If I know them well, they have a lot of tradition in place, they have a culture in place and the most important thing was for them to check whether I'd fit their culture, their mindset or would I be rebelling against what they've been thinking for so long. So they had the options, they had to weigh in their pros and cons, and then they probably decided: 'look, this guy is playing international cricket, probably he's at a stage of his career where he'll give a lot as a player and a leader' and I think that made them tilt towards me."

Having spent a lot of time with the Indian team, Karthik has also had a front-row seat to observe how Virat Kohli goes about his captaincy duties. While he has found qualities to imbibe, he said he would go about the role in his own way. "In terms of being an aggressive captain, I'm somebody who's not aggressive outwardly as nature but that doesn't mean I'm not aggressive inside - in terms of while playing a game I'm one of those guys who doesn't even speak to the opponents in the lead up to the game. That's one of the qualities that I have.

"These are the ways I show aggression - when the situation is tough, I would like to be there and do the best I can to counter the situation, I look eye to eye and do the small things that matter. In terms of body language I might not be out there in the face but I know deep down that I'm thoroughly aggressive in the way I play cricket. I would like to take that forward, not change me as a person but take this attribute of mine which I've been doing over a long time and go (forward). But if I have players in my team who are willing to go and show things outwardly then I'm okay with that, at the same time control them in such a manner that they don't get fined or stuff like that."

As a captain, Karthik already had words of advice for the two young quicks in the side - Kamlesh Nagarkoti and Shivam Mavi - while also preaching the importance of the flavour of the season - wrist spin. "Definitely they must not just concentrate on pace, that's just one aspect of fast bowling. At this stage in a situation like the IPL, you need variations, you need to be thinking ahead of the batsmen, those kind of small things. Having said that, we have Heath Streak as bowling coach and he was very efficient the last couple of years that I've worked with him and I know he has the potential to really help these youngsters and they have a lot to learn from him as a bowling coach. They're going to be in safe hands and with somebody like Jacques Kallis who's an all-rounder, I'm sure he'll giving them the right sort of advice as well.

"Everyone wants wrist spinners because it's hard to pick them and get them away, and they have the ability to pick wickets which is the most important thing. It's good that we have those three bowlers with us and how we use them, how I'm going use them as a leader, is going to be critical to the team moving forward. With time coming by, as we get close to the IPL, I'll be able to answer that question better. But for now, the three bowlers that we have are all special bowlers. One's a mystery bowler (Sunil Narine), one legspinner (Piyush Chawla) and one left-arm chinaman (Kuldeep Yadav). It's a good place to start. Most teams would be very jealous that we have three wrist spinners in our midst. That's a nice place to be."

© Cricbuzz

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