Mayank Markande has regained his old mojo after the domestic grind with Punjab. The leg-spinner, after rising to prominence with his dream season for Mumbai Indians, went on to play for India but quickly disappeared from the scene. The chances were very few with his previous IPL team Rajasthan Royals and now with a new team – Sunrisers Hyderabad – and a solid domestic season under his belt, the youngster is making the right noise.
The crafty spinner scalped 12 wickets for SRH in 2023 edition of the IPL and is now gearing up for Deodhar Trophy, where he will turn up for the Nitish Rana-led North Zone unit. The tournament gets underway on July 24 and Markande wants to make most of the opportunity.
In an exclusive chat with News18 CricketNext, he talks about his preparations for the domestic season, lessons learnt from Muttiah Muralitharan & playing under Rohit Sharma & Aiden Markram. Excerpts.
How are the preparations going on for the upcoming domestic season?
The preparations are going really well. In fact, the Sher-e-Punjab T20 Cup is there. So, the preparations are going on in full flow. The routine and drills are similar for the white-ball.
You had a brilliant IPL season. Did you make any changes in your bowling drills?
I didn’t really make any changes in particular in my bowling. It was just about an opportunity. Earlier, I wasn’t getting the chances but this time I got the opportunity and fortunately, I was able to capitalise on it.
Having someone like Muttiah Muralitharan in the SRH dug out, how helpful it was and what conversations did you have with him?
If you look at the team, it was a very young side. The players weren’t that experienced barring some of them. Personally, I used to have discussions with Muttiah Muralitharan sir about the bowling. He is himself someone who doesn’t really make any changes.
He tries to work on the strengths of a player and suggests some tactical changes here and there like field placements and all.
We also had Hemang (Badani) Sir there. He told me that I do have a lot of potential as a batter as well and further asked me to focus more on the skill. I will start working on the batting bit during the off season. I have been told that I possess the batting skills too quite a few times but I don’t really work on them (laughs).
Do you think the introduction of Impact Player Rule has certainly changed the role of an all-rounder?
See, it always depends upon the team combination. But the introduction of this rule has somewhere left an impact on the role of an all-rounder but again as I said it’s all about the team combination.
One thing is for sure that it has created an opportunity and space for a team to field 12 players. For instance, if I’m not really making a contribution with the bat, then a proper batter can come in and do the job for the team.
Talk to us about your red-ball preparations specifically.
I do a lot of single-wicket bowling ahead of the red-ball competition. I would talk about the last year specifically. It was a pretty good season for me (22 wickets in 7 matches in Ranji Trophy 2022-23) and courtesy those performances, I entered the IPL riding high on confidence as well.
I would also like to give a lot of credit to Aavishkar Salvi Sir. He made me understand a lot of things and talked to me about various aspects like the kind of mindset I should have before going into a game or what kind of planning in need to have.
How difficult or easy it is to make the transition from red-ball to white or vice versa?
Look, we have played a lot of cricket and are experienced enough to make those transitions. It’s surely a different ball game altogether though. But as I said we have played enough cricket to make a smooth transition.
Tell us about your fitness regime…
I just follow the basic drills to keep my fitness and keep in touch with our Punjab trainers. They keep telling me about the routine that I need to follow during the training session and what I need to focus on like what parameters do I need to match to play at the higher level. These are the chats that I have with them but in general I keep following my routine.
You have played under the likes of Rohit Sharma and Aiden Markram. What is that one thing that you like about their captaincy?
Rohit bhaiya to bindaas hain (It’s fun to have Rohit Sharma as the captain). I haven’t played under many skippers. Majority, I have played under Rohit bhai only. He is a very down to earth guy. Off the field also, he is someone who keeps the players together. It’s a very good thing that despite being such a big cricketer, he keeps the players together.
This time (in IPL) I played under Aiden Markram. He is also a brilliant captain and is very supportive. He gives his players a lot of confidence. For example, in one of the games against KKR, I was hit for 12 runs in the first over. The runs came off the miss-fields or the batter edged the ball and it went to the boundary.
But Aiden came to me and asked me to bowl in the same areas in the next over. So, these kind of things give a bowler a lot of confidence and self-belief.
Lastly, is there any specific bowler who is your favourite?
I don’t have any specific favourite spinner as such but I get to learn a lot from Yuzvendra Chahal whenever we meet. In fact, I was with him in the NCA recently and was bowling with him. We also had discussions about bowling during the IPL as well.
Comments
0 comment