Hairy goat key ingredient for Raval’s revival
The last time Black Caps opener Jeet Raval was in a rut this bad the threat of a goat curry was enough to power him back into form.
It was during a slump for Auckland that the left-handed vegetarian was given the magical motivation by his mentor Kit Perera.
Concerned something was wrong with his son because of a lack of runs, Raval’s father had rung Perera – the man who had immediately taken Raval under his wing upon arrival in New Zealand from India, and formed a close bond through coaching at club level – for some answers.
‘‘Leave it to me,’’ Perera assured an anxious dad. Score a hundred in his next game, or Raval would be forced to eat a special concoction cooked up by Perera, who works as a chef outside of his cricket commitments.
And what do you know, as if a switch suddenly flicked in his brain, Raval knuckled down and helped himself to a century, dished up with a nice non-meat curry Perera whipped up for him in celebration instead.
A few years down the track, it’s like something dramatic needs to click again for the 31-year-old, who is on the verge of being dropped for the first time in his 23-match test career.
After seven half centuries, Raval finally made his maiden ton in February against Bangladesh in Hamilton, but the new season has been dire, with scores of 33, 4 and 0 in the tests in Sri Lanka, 7, 3 and 14 for Auckland in the Plunket Shield, 19, 5 and 0 in the home tests against England, before 1 and 1 in last week’s opening test against Australia in Perth.
Following the heavy pink-ball defeat, Black Caps coach Gary Stead has loosened in his defence of Raval’s place in the side, indicating a possible change for the Boxing Day test at the MCG, which would see regular wicketkeeper Tom Blundell thrown into an unfamiliar role at the top of the order.
Perera acknowledges it’s ‘‘make or break’’ time for Raval, but does wonder, with no decent up and coming opener to replace him with, whether it would just be best to stick with him.
In any case, after 15 years together, he can’t wait to get some time to work with one of his top students again.
‘‘If I was watching him in front of me right now, I would glance at him for two seconds and know something’s out of kilt, that’s how well I know him,’’ Perera said.
The pair exchanged messages during the England series, ensuring they kept seeing the lighter side of things despite the batting troubles.
‘‘He texted me back saying ‘Have you got the goat curry ready’,’’ Perera said.
‘‘I said to him ‘I’m just out hunting for a hairy goat’, and I put a picture of a goat and said ‘It must be a hot one with lots of sweet chilli sauce’.
The talk got a bit more technical when they got together for a planning session the day before the New Zealand squad flew across the Tasman, as the duo tried to uncover why Raval had looked a million dollars during winter training sessions but couldn’t buy a run now.
‘‘We spoke about simplifying it, watching one ball at a time,’’ said Perera, who reminded Raval that when he first came into the side his role was purely to bat time and that there were no expectations on him.
‘‘I’ve seen him do this many times, he’s now putting himself under pressure to perform.’’
Perera told Raval he’d gone away from his three basics – leaving well, defending and putting the bad ball away – and that it looked like he didn’t have a sound batting plan in place, instead chasing wide deliveries, and that a failure to review an inside-edge lbw in Hamilton was down to all this uncertainty.
‘‘He looked at me and said ‘You’re so right, thanks for that’.’’
There was clearly no immediate fix in the Perth test, but Perera did note not many of the other batsmen fired either, and felt he was just one innings away from it all working.
Perera labels Raval ‘‘such a sensitive guy, such a caring guy, such a humble guy’’ and more grateful than anyone he’s ever known.
But he also knows he has the determination and mental fortitude to succeed, having seen a 16-year-old Raval arrive here not speaking a word of English, going on to attain a Bachelor of Commerce degree and hold down a fulltime accounting job in between cricketing commitments.