Shardul Thakur’s playbook

“He is a bowler who picks up wickets with the same deliveries with which he can also give runs, you know what I mean?” Lakshmipathy Balaji, Chennai Super Kings’s bowling coach, makes an fascinating level about medium pacer Shardul Thakur.
Perhaps, no higher clarification exists. “A bouncer, an outswinger off a length, a slower back-of-length off-cutter, a knuckle-ball bouncer… all these can be hit for boundaries. All these get him wickets too. He is someone I want in my team. You can always bank on him picking wickets. As a team management, we don’t worry too much about the runs.”
Thakur goes by his intuition to bowl a specific supply. The secret lies within the ‘amazing self-belief and conviction’ to give you a ball which others wouldn’t, says Balaji. Like a bouncer to a batsman recognized to tug nicely and on a pitch that isn’t conducive for it.
“He will go for it because something tells him he can surprise the batsman. Some days it flies for four, other days he gets the wicket. In his mind, he is an 80’s West Indian bowler! Loves his bouncers and the surprise full-ones curving away” Balaji laughs.
Pre-injury, he might have persistently fired away at tempo. But accidents have affected his readings on the pace gun.
“Luckily not by much as he still can make the batsmen hurry,” Balaji says. “In his mind, though, he is still very pacy! He wants to be someone his captain can depend on to take wickets to turnaround a game, someone the captain can depend on to hit a six off the last ball to win a match. Some people can shy away from those moments; not Shardul.”
At Chennai Super Kings, the crew administration has positioned belief in Thakur’s instincts. If Thakur is aware of the captain and coach consider in him, it will get him fired up and retains him in the correct mind set. A hand on the shoulder, an encouraging phrase that he’s a match-winner is all it takes, Balaji says.
“More you trust him, the better that instinct gets, I have noticed,” Balaji says. “Like MS Dhoni does with him in IPL. Like Kohli does with him in India,” Balaji says. “We often used him in crunch situations. In the end overs. Or in the middle, when wickets are needed. When I say pat on the back etc, I don’t mean he is someone who needs that kind of encouragement. Rather, a pat on the back is needed to show that he is trusted and the team believes that he can do it. His self-confidence is amazing. He walks up to Dhoni to say what he wants.”
Like he did when he requested to be promoted within the batting order within the IPL crew.
The evolution of Thakur the ODI bowler is a far cry from the perceptions that floated round not too way back.
‘He is a red-ball bowler,’ was the often-used throwaway line about Thakur.
It didn’t appear too harsh a judgment too as he would function in two lengths: quick or float it full. Both can doubtlessly leak runs. But one thing modified.
“His ambition. His desire for self-learning. Nothing has changed in the core, it’s just that he realized that he had to develop other deliveries to stay successful. And let it not be thought that it was me who got him to do all these different balls like the knuckleball and the cutters. He did it all by himself. He would go into extra practice sessions, train hard. Even the full ball outside off stump for example, the wide yorker as it’s called. He realized he needed to do it to not just survive but to excel.”
At CSK, the crew administration has positioned belief in Thakur’s instincts.(Source: BCCI)
Adding selection
The want so as to add selection needed to do with the constraints of his bowling motion.
“It’s very important to realise the role of bowling action. Thakur’s action makes it difficult to develop a lot of defensive options, to stop a batsman. The two lengths he hits comes from the action. To hit the in-between lengths, he developed the cutters and such, which in some ways is a variation from his regular activities. His is a classic action that can help in bowling outswingers and bowl bouncers when he whips his right arm down. He is not like a Bumrah or some others who can consistently bowl yorkers. He has deliberately developed a whole lot of other deliveries to make up for it.”
Thakur’s conviction in his personal strategies was seen when he determined to go in opposition to the leg-theory deployed by the remainder of the bowling assault in Australia and went with outswingers and bouncers, his staple. The conviction is seen when he tries to bounce out a well-set Jonny Bairstow in Pune.
Sometimes, it fails him, with ball and bat. “I remember the 2019 IPL final,” Balaji says. CSK wanted 4 runs off the final two balls of the sport, off Mumbai Indians’ Lasith Malinga. Thakur bought two off the primary, however off the ultimate ball of the sport, fell lbw, swiping throughout the road.
“He was very distressed when he came to the dressing room. There were tears in his eyes. I remember telling him, ‘that this is part of life’s experience. Every cricketer, from club to country, goes through this.’ You know what, within months Sri Lanka came to India for some series, and he whacks Malinga for a straight six. Then he blasts more shots against West Indies. In Australia, he bats outstandingly. He is now an allrounder! It’s important for him because for someone like him who can go for some runs occasionally, to have that extra opportunity to play a role with the bat in the game is mighty important for confidence.”