A star rises from the West

Chennai Super Kings’s Ruturaj Gaikwad has set the IPL alight with his dazzling stroke play. FPJ’s DEBA PRASAD DHAR travelled to Pune before the IPL season began to get a glimpse of the star at home

The quiet of Pimpri, Chinchwad, is unsettling as you head towards the Vengsarkar Cricket Academy. Like every other city in the grip of Covid, Pune is in the middle of an extended sleep. We don’t see those 12-yearold around, lugging along their cricket kits, hands dripping sweat, and ambition tattooed on their chests. But this is Covid-era, and the new normal is staring at us.

Closer to the academy’s entrance, Ruturaj Gaikwad is waiting. This writer is irresponsibly late for an interview, but he brightens the mood with a generous smile. The 24-year-old, the batting flavour of the IPL, doesn’t merely comfort us and the Chennai Super Kings with the bat. He speaks like a boy next door, almost apologetic about the attention he’s getting.

“People now recognise me as Ruturaj when I go to temples or make the odd visit to a café. This is what you work hard for,” he says.

The softness is only in the voice. Give him a bat, a different creature emerges. Coaches instill in you the values of getting to the pitch of the ball. Ruturaj, too, is the classical mould, but he can follow his own grammar of batting. Last season, he cleared the in-field against Varun Chakravarthy with a couple of casual strides towards the ball and just plain extension of hands. His audacious sweep off Jasprit Bumrah, of all people, activated YouTubers last week. It’s natural to ask, just who’s this bloke?

Sarfraz Khan and Prithvi Shaw made you follow their careers with eye-blinking feats in school cricket. Cricket wasn’t even a conversation in Ruturaj’s family, let alone having an Ajit Tendulkar to influence his formative years. He doesn’t remember who initiated him to the game. “In many of my childhood pictures, I see myself holding a bat, so somewhere I must have got connected to it. My mother Kavita Gaikwad played kho-kho. Maybe, I got my sporting genes through her,” he says.

He elaborates on the early days, “I would practise at a local ground, CQAE, close to my place. They would tell my father Dashrath Gaekwad that I should represent top clubs to pursue cricket seriously. The NCL (National Chemical Laboratory), the Star Club and the PYC Gymkhana shaped my early cricketing sensibilities. In 2008, I cleared the selection trials for the Vengsarkar Academy in Pune.”

The stumbles from there on were quite frequent. Even a whiff of success eluded him initially. It was only in the final year of an under-14 tournament that he had two hundreds, though that wasn't taking him anywhere. After lukewarm U-16 outings, his name wasn’t circulated for Maharashtra U-19 selection.

A dialogue with himself was due. Between cricket and studies, one had to lose. Cricket had to be foregrounded, his mind was firm. A change of school earlier – from St. Joseph to City International School – gave him more maidan time. Now it was time for complete unconditional submission to the game.

Results followed in the form of a tally of over 800 runs in the Cooch Behar tournament in 2014-15 and a reward with the Ranji cap two years later.

Opening was rather incidental. He recalls, “I was injured after my first Ranji game (against Jharkhand). When I returned, the middle-order slot had been taken. I gave opening a conscious thought in the subsequent Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament. My coach from U19 days Sandeep Chavan believes facing the new-ball sharpens your middle-order game as well. Having opened for the Vengsarkar club, I knew what the role demanded.”

He wasn’t going to have 140 kph missiles hurled at him in Pune maidans. He admits his initial struggles against pace. “I practiced against the bowling machine and side-arm to make the most of what I had. I could sense my game had been developing. Under Chavan sir’s watch, I tried cultivating three shots for every ball. I told myself I should be able to play the same ball behind the wicket, in front of the wicket or to the left of covers. My U-14 coach Mohan Jadhav is a devout student of technique. I owe my defence and backfoot game to him.”

He adds, “Now, I’m confident of even sweeping fast bowlers.” Bumrah, don’t be surprised.

“Even during his U-16 days he would sweep the quicks,” Chavan told this paper. “I would tell him he should take his chances if he backed himself. That’s precisely what he has been doing in the IPL. Let me add here that his silent intensity is not for everyone to see. Once, he was bowled off my delivery during practice. I still remember his stern gaze directed at me. He was only 15 then. I haven’t forgotten that look. He really hates getting out. That day he was embarrassed getting bowled by his coach. Next ball he stepped out as though his honour lay on giving me a payback,” he laughs.

The string of ‘look at me’ performances came in the 2017 Vijay Hazare Trophy. The plum cake? An India ‘A’ cap. The acid test? That would be in New Zealand for the India 'A' tour. Who was steaming in to bowl? Kyle Jamieson, that 6'8’ thing who looks over batsmen. Ruturaj says, “You can’t take your front-foot out in New Zealand. They land every ball on length. The keeper was collecting deliveries around his chest. I realised I had to develop skills to rotate strike. Dhoni’s (MS) inputs during the IPL were of immense help. He shared his methods, the way he would jump outside off-stump to deviate the ball square.”

“He adapts quickly,” Chavan says. “He might not have delivered according to expectations in the T20Is in Sri Lanka but I didn’t notice a flaw to be concerned about. Batting on slower wickets was going to be a challenge.”

We quiz Ruturaj about the way he meets the ball in the IPL with vibes of love. Unlike most of his T20 peers, there’s not a hint of violence in Ruturaj’s shots, though he comfortably clears long distances. “I must admit,” he says, “that I lack brute power. If I try to hit hard, I definitely lose shape. My success stems from timing. Watching the likes of Shane Watson and Faf du Plessis, it’s obvious they maintain shape and power equally well.”

We’re 45 minutes into the conversation, but Ruturaj remains understated. His words are unhurried and measured just like his batting. “I’m not loud and I don’t feel the need to react,” he says. “Why should I? Nobody behaves unpleasantly with me on the field.”

Humility, he wants us to know, comes from his family. “My parents are calm,” he says. “I watched the struggles of my mother, who’s a teacher at a Marathi medium government school. She would walk long distances to catch a crowded bus which would arrive every 45 minutes. There were times she would stand on the edge of the bus to go from Sangvi to Wakad. It was the same story when she would return home. All these years not once did she complain, then why should I, in a much-privileged position, do so? My father bought a Maruti 800 in 2001. Until 2019, he was using the same car even though he had a Baleno. When I gifted him a Ciaz during the lockdown (2020), he was overwhelmed.”

The life-lessons from Dhoni, he adds, have touched him. Ruturaj says, “He (Dhoni) seldom ever discussed my performance. Instead, he always emphasised on being a better person. Last year, I had been wondering what was happening to me after testing Covid positive more than once. Suresh Raina had returned home, and I knew my chance would come. I was eager to get out there, but the Covid phase kept on extending. I am emotional, I do get harsh on myself. I retreat into a shell or turn to music to heal me. But Dhoni never let my spirits drop. He would say this phase would pass and that I shouldn’t get overwhelmed when I eventually taste success.”

How could we end without reminding that du Plessis likened him to Virat Kohli. “Faf told me the thought came instinctively in his mind. He felt I was going in the same direction as Kohli. Deep within, I know there’s no comparison between him (Kohli) and I. Of course, I didn’t feel overwhelmed.”

That is what Dhoni taught him.