RCB's IPL reckoning: Part 2 - The dream realised

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW RCB's IPL reckoning: Part 2 - The dream realised Kaushik Rangarajan Share Tweet

RCB won their first IPL title in 18 years, but within the team there is belief that not adding to it in this three-year cycle would be an 'underachievement' ©AFP

In Part Two of an extensive interview with Cricbuzz, RCB's Director of Cricket Mo Bobat speaks about how the franchise figured out a winning method at the Chinnaswamy, the challenges that came with the IPL season being disrupted by the India-Pakistan conflict, and how he wants the 2025 success to create an ongoing culture of lifting trophies.

You can read the Part 1 of this in-depth Mo Bobat interview, here.

Has T20 evolved to a point where captaincy is supplemented by football style coaching from just beyond the boundary, as Ashish Nehra appears to do at GT? Even in your stint with England we saw what Eoin Morgan and analyst Nathan Leamon brought with those tactics cards from the dugout...

I don't think there's anything wrong with coaches being proactive on the boundary. I think it's quite good. I've got no issue with that.

In fact, we tried to do that quite well and it was one of the reasons we recruited DK [Dinesh Karthik]. We wanted some tactical insight coming in from the dugout. So, I think that's okay. That's modern coaching. But I still think it's really important to have a solid captain. I think it's really important. It's not just on the field. It's those marginal selection calls where you want an opinion from him and the senior players. It's programming, how you prepare, everything. We consult Rajat and the senior players on a lot of things. Andy [Flower] and I, that's our style. We want the senior group to run the environment in many ways and the more they do it, the more we have to do. But you've got to have the guys who are ready for that level of responsibility.

But are captains ok with that... with not being the alpha that makes all the calls, having their decision-making diluted?

I think ultimately every captain is different. I don't think there's a rule one way or another. Like Eoin Morgan, the best captains and leaders I've ever encountered, his brain would cope with a lot of information and he wanted some additional information from Nathan. And Nathan was doing sophisticated statistical modelling on scenarios. And Nathan would provide some additional options and information for Eoin to pay attention to.

I think in Rajat's case, he was keen to get our input. And we would normally provide options. Or if we weren't providing options, we would normally share some observations. So we've noticed the surface or we've noticed this about the conditions or the opposition, or these could be some options for fields or bowling changes. So when you get a chance to share messages, you can.

It's not our job to make the decisions on the boundary. We might provide questions, ideas, options, share some observations, but the captain needs to be able to make decisions out there.

And Rajat's greatest strength is how calm he is under pressure. And he can slow things down. And between him and in particular, Jitesh [Sharma], they did a really good job of communicating with each other on the options and making their decisions. And from other senior players like Virat and others. But Rajat is the guy who has to be able to process all that information.

Give me an example of how you guys would go about it...

I imagine there'd be close to something every game. So it's difficult to give an example. But it might be that, and at times Rajat might look over to us and signal to know whether this is the over we go with a wrist spinner or should we go seam one more over, for example. And we might just share 'okay, let's get the spinner on.' That might be an example. Or it might be that Rajat doesn't ask, but we get that message on to Jitesh and Jitesh and him then have that conversation. That could be an example. It could be the positioning of where you might have a fielder, depending on a player's strengths. It might be a bit finer, it might be a bit wider, things like that. Do they ramp? So it could be any number of things.

But one of the beauties of IPL is you have technical timeouts. But every now and then Rajat would look over and he'd ask us a question that is useful, when he wants the information. But to be clear, it's most important that he feels like he's got information he wants from on and off the field and he can make his decisions.

Let's get to the season itself. Three of your first four games were away, at Kolkata, Chennai, and Mumbai. How important was that start in setting the tone for the season?

Well, I think when people talk about RCB having never won in Chennai since whatever year, you've got to remember that that doesn't include most of us. That is one of the benefits of franchise cricket. The only person that's done that whole journey is Virat [Kohli] and none of the rest of us have. So, some of these records we broke, we're obviously proud to break them or set them, whatever you want to call it. But we weren't carrying all of that baggage. It's just noise. It's not reality. Reality is one game and it's two points. That's how I view it.

Now, if I zoom out slightly, what was more significant is that we knew that three out of our first four games were against teams that are proud of their records. So, that was another one of those challenges that we wanted to set ourselves as a group and we said we wanted to make a statement start. We wanted to start quickly and we wanted to play the type of cricket that puts the opposition under pressure.

And if we just focus on ourselves, we can't worry about the opposition, we can't worry about the pitch. Focus on ourselves and play well. If we deliver our A game, we've got to trust it's good enough for anybody.

What about the Chinnaswamy factor, historically seen as RCB's Achilles' heel? While you had statement wins away, you lost your first three home games this season. How did you view that challenge and work around it?

Look, I got asked a lot of questions about this, even in the competition. And my standard response is: you don't win an IPL trophy for home results. You win an IPL trophy for winning games of cricket. Obviously you want to do well at home when you play a good proportion of your games there. That's common sense. But I don't think you need to overemphasise it. A win is two points and two points is two points, whether you get them home or away. So I didn't want the player group to be obsessed with this or to create anxiety about it.

My second point would be: yeah, look, playing at the Chinnaswamy is a bit of a leveller. And actually, less focussing on the bat versus bat point, which is relevant. Actually, a more relevant point is that the toss decides the game. And actually in the last couple of years, the Chinnaswamy hasn't behaved the way people think it should.

I won't go into too much detail now because it's better that other people try and figure it out too, because we learnt the hard way. But the conditions have changed and it isn't behaving the way people think it should. And there are certain attributes that it's displaying that would surprise people. This year, we felt like we had a decent read of it. But the toss was working against us. We lost the first three tosses. And I'm confident that if we'd have won those three tosses, we might have come out the other side with victories. But in the fourth game, we had figured out how we would win and what we might need to do, regardless of the toss. And then we did, and that was nice.

So by the time we got to our fourth game at home [vs RR] and fifth game [vs CSK], we got into a bit of rhythm and routine, we felt quite confident at home again then. And actually, I was really disappointed that the last home game against KKR was rained off.

In terms of what you need in your team, again, I'll let other people try and figure out what that looks like. I don't want to give too many answers away. But there's certain shots that you might want to try and play. And there's other shots that you might have to concede on. There's certain skills and attributes you need in your attack. What you certainly need is character and resilience, because it's the sort of game that can get away from you. And you've got to hang in there, because the game stays alive for quite a long time.

The shots that you don't play are the cross-batted ones in front of square? I saw batters in the nets trying to get inside the line and pull it behind square or even try to hit down the ground off a short length...

[Smiles] Well, I'll probably do a bit like Andy did. I'll say, let's talk about that in three years' time and move on a few more IPLs. But look, what I would say is your observations are very good. Because there were two things we found. One is, the ball is turning more at the Chinnaswamy than anywhere else. That's a surprise - nobody expects that. And the second thing is, pace bowlers are getting variable bounce. Sometimes it's bouncing a lot, other times it's not. People can work out what shots you should or shouldn't play based on what I've just said there. It's common sense in the IPL. But that's what the ball is doing. It's turning a lot and you're getting variable bounce off the quicks. And that's worse in the first innings than the second innings. I've not let out any secrets there. Anyone who does any analysis will see that that's what the ball's doing.

So it's about working with the batters to try and clarify their own individual plans. Now, you might have seen Virat practising and playing a certain way. To be clear, we don't set too many team plans. We work with each individual. And how Phil Salt does it will be different to how Virat does it, and that will be different to how Dev does it or Rajat. They've all got different strengths. So you can't over-engineer your templates or game plans. You might have little themes, but you've got to work with each individual. I'm always about allowing players to use their strengths to put the opposition under pressure. But it's important to understand first and foremost, what the pitch is doing.

"The moment we caught wind of the postponement, myself and Andy immediately met with the overseas players. We wanted to treat them like adults." - Mo Bobat ©BCCI

This was a different kind of season with that break in the middle. Heading into the business end, did you worry about losing momentum at just the wrong time?

I would say there were upsides and downsides to the break. Mentally it was bad timing because actually we were in a good place. We were playing good cricket. You don't want to lose that feeling and that momentum. So, psychologically, it was a bad time. Physically, it was probably a good time because we had just played seven games in 21 or 22 days, all travelling before and after each one. You know, that was probably the most extensive schedule that any team had.

We had some injuries and niggles. You know, Rajat had fractured his knuckle. Josh Hazlewood's shoulder niggle had appeared. Dev [Padikkal] was struggling a little bit with his hamstring at that time. The bodies were creaking a little bit because of the schedule. And so, there were pros and cons. You know, I think so long as we could patch up the guys physically, I was quite keen for us to play soon. I wasn't in favour of having to wait a few months to come back. So, I'm glad the break wasn't too long.

But the tricky thing was that we were the last game before the break and then we became the first game after the break. The first game after the break [vs KKR] got rained off. We then played SRH in Lucknow and that was our first game of cricket in three weeks, which is bizarre. So, we went from feeling like we had brilliant momentum to the players feeling like we haven't played a game in three weeks. And most of our last practice sessions had been rained off in Bangalore. They all started to feel a bit like pre-season. That was tricky. We played that SRH game a little bit like we were warming up again, and they punished us... SRH are a very dangerous side. And I think they will be dangerous next year. They had already played one game at Lucknow. We hadn't played on that surface and we hadn't really practised much. So we were very rusty in that SRH game and we got punished and we got beaten by a better side. But we were able to then jolt things a little bit, get back into our groove, get back to routines.

The bigger challenge must have been player availability, syncing with overseas players, managing replacements. Most crucially, with Hazlewood, given how important he was to your campaign. How did you plan around that uncertainty?

Well, look, not just Hazlewood, but if you think about the break itself, I'm sure a lot of people are thinking, well, if our overseas players go, they might not come back. That's a reality. The moment we caught wind of the postponement, myself and Andy immediately met with the overseas players. I remember they came to my hotel room and we spoke to them. We wanted to make sure that we treated them like adults, because they are. If they didn't feel comfortable being in the country because of the conflict escalating and they wanted to go home, we said we have to honour that. So, at no point did we try and force them to stay. We did the opposite - we gave them choice.

But we did tell them that we had their best interests at heart, we would never put them at risk and the franchise would look after them. And if we felt like it was safe to continue, we would ask them to come back. Are they OK with that? And every single one of them said, 'Yeah, let us go. And when we get more clarity, if you guys think it's safe, we'll trust you and we'll come back.' So, we had that conversation very early.

In Josh's case, it was a bit more complicated because it wasn't just the conflict. We were mindful that he might go back to Australia, he might rest his shoulder for a bit. Cricket Australia might go, 'OK, let's now get him ready for the Test Championship Final.' They were all real things we were dealing with. Our medical team did an excellent job liaising with Cricket Australia's medical team and they were speaking anyway through the season on a regular basis. So, I think that's really, really helpful.

I think it probably also helps a little bit that I've spent 12 years working in international cricket. I have good relationships with many of the overseas boards, and so does Andy. So, we know the administrators and we know the coaches really well. And hopefully, there's trust amongst our medical team and myself and Andy. We would never have done anything that wasn't right for Josh Hazelwood as a person. So, we spent a lot of time talking with them, a lot of time talking with Josh as well.

We mapped out a plan where we felt we could help get Cricket Australia ready for the World Test Championship and the Test cricket that was coming. We said we would honour that. We also said that we wouldn't rush him back. So, ideally, we'd have him for the playoffs and anything more than that is a bonus. So, we didn't rush it. We wanted him to feel right. And yeah, look, it was a nervy few days because I was desperate to get him back. But thankfully, Cricket Australia trusted us and Josh was desperate to come back strong in the IPL for us. So, we were able to agree what that plan was and we got him back.

But it was a busy few days. I think it was something like a Monday night, we found out that the competition was restarting and we were going to be the first game back. And it was like, everyone's just got home two, three days ago. We've got to get them all back again. And I remember the next 24 hours, I spoke to every governing body, overseas governing body. We wanted to liaise with them one way or another, particularly the important ones where there were clashes, like the England players were clashing.

And then we also did video calls with every player, every overseas player. We spoke to them and said: 'This is the plan. This is how we'll look after you. Here's the schedule. We'd like you to come back here.' We didn't just order them to come back. We treated them like adults and I think they really appreciated it. And then they all came back, which was great. Obviously, we had to lose a couple of them slightly earlier because the competition got extended. So, Jacob Bethell had to go, Lungi Ngidi had to go. That was a bit of a shame that we couldn't have them through to the final, but it was also important that they honoured their international commitments.

"Jitesh played, I think, the knock of the tournament" - Mo Bobat ©AFP

Which brings us to that Jitesh Sharma-LSG game: a top-two spot on the line, and Rishabh Pant suddenly turning it on. Was there a moment of "here we go again"? Especially given RCB's recent history of finishing third or fourth and getting stuck at the Eliminator stage?

Yeah, look, the first thing I'd say is finishing top two was really important. Halfway through our campaign, we started to talk about that being our ambition, not just to qualify. Now we are going into that game, and actually in the back half of the group stage, some of the teams that had had a difficult start to the campaign started to play well, maybe because they had a little bit less to lose by that stage. So we knew that they were going to be a dangerous team. And look, it's no surprise to see Rishabh do what he does. He's one of the best players in the world. So you don't ever think he's going to have low scores for too long. He's too good a player.

We conceded whatever we did, 226 or 227 something like that. And there was probably a general feeling that we might have given them too many. I thought the pitch had played all right and we had bowled okay. So I thought we were 10 or 15 over par, chasing that score. And I thought that was going to be difficult, but not impossible. Then obviously the way the innings was going, it was proving a little bit difficult. At one point I was thinking we had too much work to do. We might not quite make the top two, but we're still good enough to win this competition. So whatever will be, will be.

But then Jitesh played, I think, the knock of the tournament - given what was at stake for us and him being captain on the day. That really pumped a lot of belief back into us. And I mentioned earlier that we were a little bit rusty against SRH and this was a booster again for the group to remind them of what we're capable of.

I think when you're finding ways to get back into games, that's not just an indication of skill level, but it's also character and togetherness and unity and culture and environment. I think that's very powerful. The moment we finished top two, I was very satisfied because you can't always control what happens in knockout games. When you wake up on the day of the final, it's quite an odd feeling because you're desperate to win it, but you're going to be zero or hero by the end of the day. It's one or the other. And you can't have your mood totally attached to the result of that one game because it doesn't make it a bad campaign because you lost the final. It's still a good campaign.

It ultimately came down to two games against Punjab Kings - another team chasing their first IPL title. You won convincingly in the first qualifier, then had a four-day wait for the final. What was that experience like, managing the group through that gap?

We played well against Punjab in that first qualifier and we were proud of that performance. But I didn't want us to over-celebrate that victory because you haven't won anything yet. You've played well and it's a fine balance. You want people to enjoy the way we've played and be proud of that, but the job isn't done.

I remember immediately at the end of that game, Virat and I had a quick exchange and we both said 'one more'. We almost said it at the same time. And then that message is something that you want to infiltrate in the environment so that peoplekeep their feet on the ground and keep respecting the game. Because as soon as you don't respect the game, it can bite you.

I suppose I've got a bit of personal experience there. In 2019, when England won the ODI World Cup, we beat Australia in the semi final. The guys were obviously very excited and Trevor Bayliss in the changing room reminded the group that we hadn't won anything yet. And he said something like, 'This is why us Aussies make fun of you Poms, because you celebrate getting to finals.' And it was a really good reminder to the group to go, okay, we've done well, be proud. But the job's not done. And a bit of that Aussie mentality is quite a good reminder.

So I had that in my mind for RCB. The second thing was that I was quite keen for us to not get too wedded to who we played in the final, because four days at that time is quite a long time to think about finals. We could be playing Punjab again, we could be playing GT, we could be playing Mumbai. The fact is, they're all three good teams, and they all will take proper preparation, and they'll take good performance from us. So whatever social time we had together, I was really conscious about us not getting too tilted towards an opposition or a preference, and feeling brave and confident enough that whoever we play, it doesn't really matter, we've got to play well.

"Immediately at the end of that game (Qualifier), Virat and I had a quick exchange and we both said 'one more'." - Mo Bobat ©BCCI

And then came the final. You batted first, put up 190, did you feel that was enough? And at what point did it actually hit you that the title was won?

I can answer very clearly because my personality type doesn't let me take anything for granted until it's done. Even in that last over, when for the first couple of balls, it kind of looked like we were going to be okay. Since I sit next to Andy in the dugout, Andy tapped me on the leg, because I think he was quite happy that we were there, and I just said, let's wait till the end. That's the way I am, I guess - I don't allow my brain to think like that. We'll finish the game, respect the opposition, and at the end of it, if we're celebrating, great.

A couple of days later, DK and I and a couple of the coaches watched the final back because I wanted to re-watch it ball by ball. When I went back a bit more impartially, I felt a bit more comfortable in the second innings, feeling like we were in a good place. But when you're in the game, you feel more nervous than that, of course you do.

If I'm honest, at half-time, I know some commentators thought we might have been 30 runs short. I thought we were about 10 runs short. I thought 200 was about right. But I thought we were one of the best bowling attacks in the competition, so we could earn those 10 runs back. I also thought chasing in a final had some pressure. Someone like Josh Hazelwood was very confident. That might just be a good sign of his uber-confidence. He's obviously very impressive when you get to those knockout games.

Just staying with Hazlewood, was he always your first-choice target? During the fast-bowler set, from the outside it felt like it was coming down to him or Jofra Archer, who you've worked with before at England. Both coming off injuries, both offering that trampoline bounce, but with slightly different profiles. How did you weigh that up?

The honest answer is we were happy with both of them. They're both world-class bowlers. Both of them would have improved our team. They both have similar attributes in some cases, but different strengths. We were very keen on Hazelwood because he's been in the franchise before. He's obviously a champion bowler, proven track record and credibility. We knew that he could deal with winning games at Chinnaswamy and for RCB.

And then similar with Jofra, I know Jofra pretty well from my time with England. I respect him, admire him hugely as a player. He's got a real X factor. We'd have been happy with him too. It's very rare you get to a position in an auction on a plan where you're genuinely happy with two world-class options and there aren't many better. And that was definitely the case with those two. We were certainly delighted when we secured one of them.

Do you remember what was being said in the dressing room during the final? Was there a particular message or mood that stood out?

I remember Andy and I speaking to Josh, and Josh was very confident. In fact, without embarrassing Josh, he was so impressive in that final week with the knockout games. You can understand why he's the champion he is and why he's won everything he's won because when those big games ramped up, he went up a level. I don't mean his skill, I mean his character. He spoke even better in team meetings. He had extra clarity, extra conviction. I could see that the other players were taking confidence from him.

I'm not going into too much detail, but just the clarity of his thought on plans for opposition batters, focussing on our own strengths, how we might adapt to conditions. He just spoke with real clarity and conviction all week. That's why you want guys like that in your team.

In your post-final speech, you spoke about "getting used to winning." You've been part of big World Cup wins in your career. Where does this IPL title with RCB rank for you personally?

I feel very blessed that I worked with some brilliant people, administrators, coaches and players with England and we did achieve some real success across formats. The ODI World Cup in 2019 and 2022 T20 World Cup were both very enjoyable and special experiences of my life, particularly the way that 2019 final went and it being a home final, that day will stay with me forever, that's for sure. But I must admit this IPL victory on a personal level was every bit as enjoyable and maybe even more personally satisfying, if I was to speak selfishly for a minute, because my position and my level of influence here is greater than the role I had with ECB. At ECB I was part of a bigger leadership team whereas here as Director of Cricket, you carry most of the cricketing decisions alongside the head coach. He and I work in very close partnership.

You know, I haven't come here to only win one IPL. I'd like us to win several IPLs so this is a start, and the speed at which we achieved that is good - mainly because I think we were brave enough to do things differently, that's why I'm satisfied. I was satisfied when we qualified for top-two, but I was still hungry for us to go all the way. I don't like using the word 'legacy', but what I'm clear on is that we are part of this "new RCB" that I described earlier. We don't want to be waiting 18 years for the next victory, for the next trophy... we're too good a franchise to be doing that and too good a team of players. When you win, it's quite an addictive feeling and if you can enjoy that experience and enjoy the winning it probably fuels the hunger to go again.

But what you can't do is think that you've climbed your Everest - that's just a dangerous mentality. What we've done might be unique in RCB's history but it's not unique in the IPL - there's seven other teams that have done it, so let's not tell ourselves that it's unique. We should enjoy it, be proud of it, be proud that we were able to do it for our fans because they've been the most patient. But we've got to set our standards high and our bar high, and we should be trying to achieve an era of success.

If we were to only win or push for it once in this cycle, we'd probably feel like that's an underachievement. So I've got a lot of belief in this group and Andy has as well, as has Rajat and the other senior players and we're hungry. So you know, all our attention will go to trying to hunt down a second IPL trophy and try and hunt down back-to-back wins. That's what we're focussed on.

**You can read Part 1 of the in-depth Mo Bobat Interview, here

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