Confidence is the fuel that runs the engine for any athlete. You could be Virat Kohli, one of the best batsmen ever to play the game, surely amongst the best in white-ball cricket and someone who technically mastered T20 batting. And yet, you could still be suffering the most wretched form of your long career, unable to buy a run for yourself or your team.
It has been excruciating watching Kohli suffer in the 2022 Indian Premier League. Truth told it is the summation of a nearly three-year-long poor run of form. Not being able to score an international hundred across formats, a resultant lack of trophies and silverware, the captaincy saga, and so on, it has all taken a toll on Kohli. The swagger has been missing, and it has been replaced by that wry smile.
For too long, the real Kohli has been missing in action, and for some part, it does affect how things will shape up for him at present and in the coming months. There were suggestions about dropping him from Royal Challengers Bangalore’s playing eleven for a short bit, just to see if it helped matters. There is also a school of thought suggesting that this wretched form could see him retire from at least one of the three formats. Could it also impact his plane ticket to Australia for the T20 World Cup later this year? These are questions to which answers are not yet forthcoming, and a lack of runs doesn’t really help.
There is still time for a fightback though, and on Saturday, Kohli fought the good fight. The timing still wasn’t there, but at least he could feel the ball on the meaty part of his bat and not the edges. His first boundary, straight down the ground to long-off, signalled relief. A couple of overs later, he pulled a snorter to fine leg for four and you thought, hey, intent. And then there was a wristy flick to midwicket, and ‘shot of the day’ is the only phrase that came to mind.
It has taken 10 matches for Kohli to score a half-century in IPL 2022. It was only his fifth score in double digits this season, only the third time he scored more than 12 runs in an innings, and only the third time he crossed 40 too. If you are a Kohli fan, you should be happy. He himself should be happy, for another low score would have set the cat amongst the pigeons. This half-century provides relief, even if momentarily.
RCB fans, on the whole, might not be pleased though. A third straight loss as we move to the business end of this season and RCB are now stuck in second gear, slipping down the points table gradually but surely. Cynics will say Kohli’s knock of 58 off 53 balls didn’t really help matters. That’s not how the game works. The RCB management showed faith in him to fight back, and he did, dropping anchor as Rajat Patidar took on the bowlers. Kohli was not meant to accelerate or explode on Saturday. It was the others’ job, and until Glenn Maxwell’s 33 off 18 balls, it did happen as RCB scored 60 off the last 35 balls. But credit also goes to Gujarat Titans who squeezed the RCB middle order and restricted them to 170/6 and kept the score within a chase-able measure.
Confidence also affects the dynamics in any team game. It can be both individualistic and collective in nature. If the first alludes to Kohli’s fight against poor form, then certainly the latter points to how the Titans are flying high as a unit. This is a team riding the confidence wave, and with 16 points from nine games, it has carried Hardik Pandya and company almost all the way to the knockouts.
Who would have thought? Gujarat Titans in the top four in their inaugural season? Certainly not at the time of auctions, for their selections seemed a bit disjointed. The drafts looked good – Pandya, Rashid Khan and Shubman Gill. Beyond that, the auctions proved to be a scattergun approach. Matthew Wade? Wriddhiman Saha? David Miller? Mohammed Shami? These aren’t names that exactly set fire to the T20 arena.
And yet, these are the very names that have played a handsome part in carrying the Titans to the knockouts. Wade, for better or worse, helped them find an initial solution and another one at present. Saha is playing some good, attacking cricket at the top. Miller found form against Chennai Super Kings and paid back the belief shown in him. Shami has formed an awe-inducing new-ball pairing with Lockie Ferguson and is leading the Titans’ pace attack.
Then, there is Rahul Tewatia, the man who cannot do any wrong. Give him an impossible situation, and something just clicks in his mind. Perhaps it is the way he has made a name for himself – having to fight for credit, joust for his place in the Indian cricket wilderness. Those formative battles have hardened Tewatia at his very core that nothing else seems impossible now.
You want him to smack 12 off two balls? He will do it. You want him to construct the finishing point of a tough chase, twice in as many games? He will do it. 40* off 21 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad, and then 43* off 25 balls against Bangalore, Tewatia has stamped himself as the best finisher on display in IPL 2022. It may well have set the bells ringing in the selection corridors for the upcoming World Cup, but one digresses.
Herein though, the underlying point is about the self-belief bursting through Tewatia, and how it reflects collectively across the board for Gujarat Titans. Each of them has arguably fought through an impossible journey – whether it is Pandya, who was misjudged both as an all-rounder and a captain ahead of this season, or even Ashish Nehra, whose credentials as head coach were under the scanner after a poor stint with RCB.
Then there is Rashid Khan, whose very existence is both an individual victory against conflict, and also representative of a nation’s victory against strife. Together, Gujarat Titans have stitched an outfit that is stretching limits at every outing. You give them a challenge and they will meet it head-on. They will push you till the very last ball and then deliver magic when you least expect it, all because each of those individuals believes he can do it.
This confidence – both singular and collective – has carried Gujarat Titans to surprising wins across this IPL 2022 season, and it could very well lift them to a stunning title triumph too.
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