The first five balls of the fourth over saw Wasim Jaffer execute two pulls and a hook. Two dot balls just enhanced the drama without delaying it. On the sixth ball off the over by Kulwant Khejroliya, also a Mumbai Indians player, Jaffer saw the ball angle in and all he did was help it to fine leg. Vidarbha had won the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy by nine wickets.
Five decades and 266 matches later, a team that was given as much of a chance as India picking up an athletics gold at the Olympics had remained unbeaten at the end of the campaign to win the most prestigious trophy in Indian domestic cricket.
And all of this wasn’t just achieved by ‘dreaming big’ or by dressing room pump up ‘if you dream big, you achieve big.’ What Vidarbha did was push into motion an entire apparatus to create a cricketing culture. But the ace that they played was relying on a simple but extremely important tool used extensively across the world―mentorship. They had two of the best within their ranks―one in the team and one outside; former India opener Wasim Jaffer who had won the Ranji Trophy eight times earlier with Mumbai, and Chandrakant Pandit who had won with Mumbai as a player and as coach.
The distance between Nagpur and Mumbai is just around 800 km. In fact, come to think of it, that played a big role in snaring someone like Jaffer into the team, even though he was also a part of the campaign in the 2015-16 seasons. But injuries didn’t allow him to play. One of the points that Jaffer speaks is the distance playing a role when he decided to move away from Mumbai.
“I didn’t want to stop a youngster coming into the Mumbai team and, at the same time, I also wanted to play as a professional,” says Jaffer. “So, when the Vidarbha offer came and there were many other offers too, the distance wasn’t too much from Mumbai and I wasn’t too far off from the family.”
Major boost
Mentorship is not too evolved in Indian sport yet. But Vidarbha’s win will give it a major boost. In fact, Aakash Chopra played a massive role as a mentor/player in helping Rajasthan win two consecutive Ranji Championships in 2010-11 and 2011-12. In those two years, Aakash also had batting professionals in Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Rashmi Ranjan Parida. In that period, Rajasthan too prospered with local talent coming to the fore in Deepak Chahar, Ashok Menaria, Pankaj Singh and Vivek Yadav. Similarities too abound in Vidarbha’s win.
But take a look at mentorship when Gujarat won the Ranji title last year. They, of course, had Parthiv Patel’s experience, but crucially roped in R.P. Singh as the fast bowler who could also mentor the youngsters coming up in the squad like Rush Kalaria and Chintan Gaja.
After the winning campaign, Manpreet Juneja and coach Vijay Patel admitted that it was R.P. Singh’s talk about bowling basics that helped Gujarat come back into the match. Vijay had then said, “He told the bowlers how to bowl looking at each batsman. He has been a mentor to the side. On the field, everything is planned by him because he has played at that level. He knows what works and what doesn't, which has helped our pace bowlers a lot.”
Juneja also praised RP’s mentorship saying: “Having someone like RP in the team is very good for the youngsters. Apart from the guidance, they also understand how to bowl in different conditions.”
But what better a mentor than a man who had played eight Ranji finals and won each of them. Wasim Jaffer with five Test hundreds to his credit says that the roles were very clearly defined when the campaign began for the Ranji Trophy.
“Young players were mentored and told to adjust their play according to conditions and situations,” explains Jaffer. “Before the match against Bengal, I told Chandu sir (Chandrakant Pandit) to pick Aditya Sarvate. But he was reluctant. I knew Sarwate’s potential and that he would deliver. So Chandu sir agreed. Sarwate scored some 89 and picked up 2-3 wkts. I had become the mediator for the team. Even Faiz (Vidarbha’s captain) is sometimes scared of Chandu sir so I did the talking. We played the role. The aim was to win the Ranji Trophy.”
Motivating youngsters
Across the world, big teams and even in individual sport, they are realising the deep sense of belonging that comes when a champion or an experienced sportsperson shares his thought process and winning ability with youngsters. The young ones feel the intensity on a field rather than sit in an auditorium listening to a boring lecture.
Chandrakant Pandit, who had been roped in as coach for Vidarbha, points to Jaffer as the fulcrum of the team. “Senior players like Jaffer are role models,” says Pandit. “It was a great help in the dressing room and on the ground. We are both from Mumbai and he has played under me. He could pass on his individual skills and keep up the energy in the dressing room. And that is how the positive attitude came around. Watching Jaffer bat was a motivation. Young guys got a chance to share a dressing room with him.”
Vidarbha coach Chandrakant Pandit was key to the success of the team in the finals | PTI
In fact, in the United Kingdom, tennis player Andy Murray has started mentoring younger athletes. One of them, 20-year-old Shannon Hylton had a breakthrough moment last summer when she edged out Olympians Bianca Williams and Desiree Henry to become British 200m champion, equalling her lifetime best of 22.94secs and qualifying for the London 2017 World Championships. Coming from a tennis player was quite out of the ordinary.
Wasim Jaffer is quite clear that he wasn’t in for the money as a professional player. “When I was dropped from the Indian team, I had offers to play as a professional,” says Jaffer. “But then I was Mumbai captain. Then I thought of taking on a new challenge. Let’s play for another state and have another challenge. Sole aim to play as a professional was to contribute. It wasn’t just about the money. To earn money and not bother about winning and losing wasn’t my thing.”
Last season, Jaffer was injured and Vidarbha respected his contract. And this season, he didn’t take the money as “I wanted to return the favour. Winning was the biggest satisfaction.”
In 2009, for the first time in the NFL, the Giants and the Baltimore Ravens brought forward a player-driven mentorship programme where youngsters are paired with veterans. The program allowed the veterans to share victories, losses, personal issues, dealing with celebrity status and how to raise beliefs and stick to them.
Ambition lies at the core of such programmes. So do achievements like Vidarbha winning a Ranji title never before in five decades. “The new team is a challenge,” says Pandit. “There was hardly any culture of cricket. One needed to develop cricket. Self-belief was needed. Winning culture was needed. We needed to develop a team that could play for 7 to 8 years and also develop the U-19 team. It’s not the end of the journey. Let’s hope we continue winning.”
Perform or perish
Vidarbha went unbeaten in the season. Beating Punjab in Mohali was a big boost and then victories over Bengal and Karnataka followed. Jaffer speaks about team dinners being always together and a few things that Pandit brought in. “We even had an entertainment committee to put up programmes with the whole team there including the support staff,” says Jaffer. “That mantra worked for us. Room partners were changed also. Pandit ensured that. He picked up players who could perform. No player was guaranteed a place. Everybody was out of their comfort zone.”
For a team that had never crossed the quarter final, playing the final could have been an anti-climax; a peak they may not scale simply because of the enormity of the achievement for a bunch of players who might think playing a final was in itself a big deal. “I told the team in the final after the first innings that we need to raise the bar,” says Jaffer. “Chandu sir also spoke. Then Gurbani bowled that spell. The hat-trick changed the complexion. The momentum was with us. Gurbani is a big match player and knows how to take 5-6 wickets.”
Greg Louganis, one of the world’s best divers with four Olympic Golds mentored the American team before the 2012 London Olympics. He helped the divers cope with expectations which usually come from coaches, parents, and, of course, themselves. In 1988, at the Seoul Olympics, Louganis had whacked his head on the board while performing a two and half somersault pike in the 3-metre event. But later, after a quick medical check, came back and won the gold.
Spread across the length and breadth of this nation, there are enough winners in every sport to mentor youngsters. And it’s just not only big sportspersons who can mentor. Anybody who has played at the highest level has experience which youngsters want to imbibe. Aakash Chopra showed it with Rajasthan; R.P. Singh with Gujarat; Jaffer and Pandit with Vidarbha. Nurturing talent is a skill and it’s always the past that blends itself with the present and future to produce some outstanding winners. Pandit’s sign off was brilliant. “Day1, 2018…it's history and it’s the past. Let’s prepare now for the other tournaments.”
