DEVDUTT PADIKKAL: Valiant debutant’s gallant game

The Indian Premier League (IPL) is an ideal forum to promote young cricketers, where new players not only share dressing rooms with the world’s top cricketers but also learn a lot from them. These cricket stalwarts of their era, who are now coaches of the teams of youngsters, even contribute immensely in honing the skills of young players.

 Here, we are talking about a youngster Devdutt Padikkal, who got the company of Royal Challengers Bangalore coach Simon Katich, and batting coach Sridharan Sriram for a certain period of time. Under the guidance of such high-caliber cricketers, Devdutt sharpened his skills to the extent of reaching a dizzy height in the game.

 However, old coaches of Devdutt cannot be ignored here. But Devdutt got a professional environment and superb guidance by virtue of being with able coaches — Simon Katich and Sridharan Sriram. What is also remarkable about the IPL forum is that several foreign players give young players the opportunity to grow and develop. That is what was done by Shane Warne in the Rajasthan Royals team last year.

 In the match played against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Monday, apart from Aaron Finch, RCB’s captain Virat Kohli also played a big role in promoting Devdutt. Virat gave Devdutt a chance to open the innings in place of himself. It was a big decision as Virat has been handling the job of the opener for the last few years. And as regards Aaron Finch, the heavyweight batsman from the other end kept boosting Devdutt’s morale for every shot he played.

 Even Finch controlled himself and demonstrated patience at the sight of Devdutt adopting an aggressive style. Finch was also seen giving Devdutt useful tips between the wickets. Finch displayed patience to such an extent that he hit his first boundary in the fifth over.

 After the initial shots of Devdutt, it looked as if his favorite spots for the shots were midwicket, square leg and fine leg boundaries. But by hitting attractive boundaries off Natarajan and Bhuvaneshwar, Dutt proved that he can play a good stroke at the off side also. 

He scored more runs by way of pull and cover drive. What is interesting is that Devdutt made his debut in first class cricket, List A, T20 and now IPL with half century. With the fifty in Monday’s IPL match, he completed his seventh half century in total 13 innings of T20.

 His second quality is timing of his shots, which used to be seen earlier during the batting of cricketers such as Saurav Ganguly and Gautam Gambhir. He has now got a good opportunity by being in Virat’s team, and the skipper has given him a chance to open the innings of the team leaving aside several top batsmen fit for the job. It means that a positive and professional atmosphere is there for Devdutt Padikkal in cricket.