12 mins read . by Sandeep Mahagaonkar . August 21, 2015
It was a lazy afternoon and a small portion of the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore was abuzz with activity. The restaurant and the adjoining lounge saw the players and members make beeline entries and exits. This is where I wait for Bharat Chipli – IPL and Ranji player – to arrive for a scheduled interview. I receive a call from him and he informs me that he’ll be delayed by 10 minutes.
I sit back and observe the players at their jovial best – taking a dig at each other or talking about an incident from a concluded game. Just then, I notice Stuart Binny arriving at the lounge. He has been recently asked to join the Indian side touring the neighboring Sri Lanka for an ongoing test series. As he awaits his wife to join him, I walk to him and congratulate him on his selection in the Indian test team. He’s polite and thanks me for the wishes. We speak for about five minutes as Bharat arrives and joins us. Both the players have a casual banter – more as friends than colleagues – shortly before Bharat and I take Stuart’s leave to settle down for a conversation.
Bharat, like Stuart, is polite and enquires if he should order some food for both of us. I realize its lunch time and provide my consent. He asks the waiter to get a few boiled eggs and some juice – the first to give him a dose of protein and the second to hydrate his body. Food was to follow next. There is a practice session scheduled for the upcoming Karnataka Premier League in the next 90 minutes and the man seems to be preparing his body for that. The food and fluids arrive and we decide to finish that first before we get started with the interview.
Excerpts from the interview:
Sandeep Mahagaonkar (SM): Firstly, thanks for your time and appreciate your support.
Bharat Chipli (BC): My pleasure and sorry to keep you waiting.
SM: How did your cricketing career start?
BC: My family stayed in BTM layout in Bangalore and since the time I was a kid, I had keen interest in cricket. Like most kids I played cricket at grounds near my home. I was probably 13 years old when I joined a camp run by a person named Anantram. This is where I got good exposure to playing cricket with the leather ball. Then, a year later, I joined Diamond Cricket Club. This club represented cricket in the fourth division conducted by KSCA.
SM: Representing fourth division cricket at the age of 14 might have been a challenge.
BC: It was challenging, but it gave me good exposure playing with senior cricketers. I had to deal with the pace and bounce that tall bowlers can generate and this put me in a good stead to bat at the top order – something that I have done for the most of my career.
SM: How extensive and intense were the coaching/training sessions?
BC: I learnt most of the batting techniques in the camp that I participated. It was not very intense back then, but most of what we learnt was on trial and error method.
We carried the failures from the matches to the nets. If we got out trying to play a particular shot, we would practice more on that aspect. We learnt the nuances of batting and stroke play in each game. Most of it was self-learning – a discovery in itself. We didn’t have any sophisticated equipment or coaching methods back then. It was up to us how we picked our skills and how we thought through the entire process.
SM: Many of the child prodigies emerge from school cricket. Was it any different for you?
BC: The school that I studied, unfortunately, didn’t have a cricket team of its own. That’s when I had to reach out to camps and play a bit of cricket there. I then joined a summer camp and was coached by a person named Jaswanth who later put me to Swastik Union club.
SM: Was becoming a batsman a deliberate choice?
BC: I used to do both – bat and bowl. But in the summer camp, my batting was spotted and I was told to focus more on it.
SM: How critical is it to know your strengths and continue to build on it?
BC: It’s very important. As kids we needed guidance and there were people around to provide that. It made a lot of difference. It’s important to do one thing particularly well than doing multiple things and not being good at any of those.
SM: How did this focus on your batting help you?
BC: It helped me in many ways. I started scoring a lot of runs and the club I later represented (Jawans) got promoted from 4th to 3rd division. I played in 3rd division for nearly two years and was picked for 1st division directly. I by-passed 2nd division as I did particularly well in the 3rd divison.
SM: How old were you when you made it to the 1st division (a level below Ranji Trophy)?
BC: I was 17 at that time. I was then picked for the under-19 zonal level and scored heavily – I got 3 hundreds in 5 games (2-day matches).
SM: I am sure your performances would have been noticed.
BC: Yes, it was. I was able to make it to the under-19 state team. Unfortunately I had tough time in the state under-19 tournament and didn’t score many runs. I was later dropped from the side.
SM: What went wrong? Was it to do with self-belief or any other factor?
BC: Self-belief was always there. One thing in professional sport is that you need to back yourself and believe in your abilities. Without that you are a goner.
I feel my inability to score runs at the state level was to do with my lack of strength.
SM: Was strength training not a part of your fitness regime?
BC: I would say it wasn’t as much those days as it is now. We used to bat for long hours in the nets and practiced on the areas that we were vulnerable. We were mentored technically, but not extensively. We practiced, toiled hard and that’s how we honed our skills.
What are the defining attributes of a professional sportsperson?
BC: Skills development is the primary attribute. You may be talented, but without relentless beating on your craft, one cannot improve much. It takes discipline and hard work. One also needs to have the passion for their chosen field.
SM: Is there pressure to learn quickly and start performing?
BC: There is no pressure as such (I’m not sure if other lads felt pressure, but not me. It’s more of an individual thing), but the fact is, if you can learn techniques quickly, you get to play the games earlier.
If you are slow in the learning curve, then it takes you longer to get drafted in to the side –and who would want to just practice and not play matches? It’s important to keep the focus; learn and practice the techniques with an open mind.
SM: Does it get easy once you’ve honed the required skills?
BC: I would say learning is a continuous process. The day you stop learning, you tend to cease. Like I earlier mentioned, when I represented the state under-19 team in Vishakapatanam, I could not just score runs. Prior to this tournament, I scored runs in plenty – getting a hundred every alternate game.
This was one of the first games I played on a turf wicket with a lush green outfield. When I hit the ball, it would not travel 30 yards. As I said, I didn’t have the required strength. Then, when I tried to hit harder, I ended up getting out. I failed in a few games and I was put back to division cricket. Then the whole process of re-learning started again – how to score runs on slow outfields, how to stay poised in difficult times etc. I practiced hitting the ball harder in the nets and that eventually helped overcome the challenge.
SM: It’s said one should play to his strengths. Do you follow this advice?
BC: I do. When I got selected for under-22 state team, I scored couple of big centuries. This was possible because I exactly knew which ball to hit and which one to let go. It’s all about decision making out in the middle. It took me few years to judge the deliveries and it was possible because I kept working on that aspect. Things don’t happen overnight. One needs to be patient and be disciplined to get better.
SM: Many batsmen perish playing a loose shot. Why does that happen?
BC: There are some deliveries that can get any batsman out. One can only appreciate the beauty of that delivery and take the long walk back. However, like you said, batsmen occasionally tend to play a loose shot and get out. This happens when the batsman gets in to two minds – whether to go for a shot or not to – and in this indecision, the bowler invariably gets rewarded with your wicket.
SM: How does a player settle this indecision?
BC: It’s simple. If you’ve made your mind to go after the bowler and whack him for a six – just go for it. The mind says and the body follows. If there is an element of self-doubt, don’t do anything foolish – just defend the ball. You’ll get an opportunity later. It’s important to survive and be where the action is. You can’t score runs sitting in the dressing room. Again, this is not easy. It takes practice and consistent mental focus.
SM: Did you ever feel like giving up playing professional cricket?
BC: There was a period when I was 21 years old that I moved away from cricket and joined a corporate. The cricket season had just ended and there were no immediate matches in sight. Anxious about the future, I joined a company named AXA and worked there for 8 months.
I was getting settled with this new found lifestyle, away from the grind of practice and physical strain. It was just then that I got a job offer from Canara Bank and to represent their cricket team. I was reluctant to join, but my father and Vijay Bharadwaj (former India player) talked me into accepting the offer. (My father has backed my cricketing aspirations since my childhood. He used to drive me to the nets and back most of the time during my younger days). Their contention was that I had laid the foundation of my cricketing career with some solid performances, why throw it away? Then in 2004, I joined Canara Bank and was back in the cricketing circuit.
SM: You made your Ranji trophy debut in 2005. Were you in contention much earlier?
BC: I was in contention for the Ranji team in 2004, but I had typhoid just before the selections. I lost that season and that was devastating. I realized that regretting the past can do no good to my future and so I started doing what I did best – enjoy playing cricket and forgetting about other aspects that was not in my control. I finally made my Ranji debut in 2005 against Railways in which I opened for Karnataka.
SM: Were you dropped from the Ranji team, and if so, was it a bitter experience?
BC: I was dropped in 2008-2009, but again made a comeback two years later. I wouldn’t say it was a bitter experience, but a lesson that there are always others knocking on the doors. One needs to either perform or perish. So when the time comes for you to make way for others, acknowledge the fact that the training needs to get more intense and the focus needs to get sharper. In the end, the effort that goes in to get into the team for the first time, the same (or perhaps higher) effort is required when you get dropped – a cyclic thing of Practice – Perform – Promote.
SM: A team that stays together wins together. How true is this?
BC: Every individual in a team needs to have a sense of belonging. Some teams manage to create that culture and a few teams don’t. In teams where there is a strong culture of team bonding and team work, they typically do well. This happens because every individual knows each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, the cause of the team is larger than that of any individual – and teams that follow this philosophy do better than others.
SM: How do you handle criticism?
BC: It’s disappointing. But if you look at it, every player knows what their weaknesses or flaws are. Critics just help in bringing that open in public. I put myself back into the practice zone and prepare for the upcoming game. There is no point harping on being criticized. The more you fuel fire, the more it grows. However, it’s important to learn from mistakes and not repeat them.
SM: Do you ask for and give advice?
BC: I ask for advice whenever I need it. It’s important to be proactive and seek advice from seniors and coaches. Unless one is inquisitive, no one is going to push advice down anyone’s throat.
During matches, if I am batting with a junior batsman and if he is making mistakes, I walk up to him and give him certain pointers. Off the field, I would expect him to seek for advice. This shows interest to learn and improve. It’s contextual in a way.
SM: What advice would you give to the youngsters?
BC: Keep things simple and don’t try too many things at once. Pick up an aspect and get better at that first, before moving to the next. Have the self-belief that you’ll prevail any situation and that will keep you in good stead.
SM: Any plans on the second innings – i.e., what next after you stop playing cricket?
BC: Coaching, perhaps. I’m still thinking through it and should have some concrete decisions made sometime shortly. I wish to give back something to the game that has made me the person that I am today.
SM: Thank you Bharat. It was a pleasure talking to you.
BC: You are welcome and all the best with Wisdom Growth Unlimited.
