Devdutt Padikkal stats in a young age
– Let’s come back to this IPL journey. So, it’s a break and a restart, or is it a break and just as continue from where you left? How do you look at this?
– It’s almost felt like we’ve just continued. We’re just continuing the tournament again. To be honest, it doesn’t feel like we’ve had a long break, because we’ve had enough crickets in between as well. So it does not feel like a huge break. So it’s just about, you know, continuing the momentum that we had in the first phase of the season.
– You know, I spoke to a common friend of ours in Bengaluru, and this was even before you made your debut. And he said, “Watch out for this guy, he will score 100 this season”, and you actually ended up scoring 100 against Rajasthan Royals. Talk to us about that. I mean, it’s not easy to get 100 and you got 100 at such a young age.
Devdutt Padikkal RCB
– Yeah. To be honest, I never expected myself to do that at that point. Although, I did believe that I can get those runs, you know, get those 50-60s. But I wouldn’t yet, you know, picture myself getting that hundred in that game. And everything just fell in place. And once I got going I just knew this was the day that I had to make it big and that’s very important. To be honest, you know, those days don’t come around often. And once you have that moment, you have to just grasp it, and I felt that I did that well that day.
– And you were batting with Virat, and he kept letting you take the strike and finish the 100.
– Yeah
– And there was this clip that obviously went viral, where I think you said, “No, it’s okay. I’ll do it another game.” And he said, “No no, just get done with it”, right?
– The thing was… He was also going well at that point and we were very close to the target.
– How do you negotiate that man? I mean, you’re such a senior player, captain of the team, and you’re looking at him going “Should I score the hundred like…”? Well, what was that like?
– Yeah, I just told him that “I think you should, you can go for it,” because… At that moment he obviously told me that these moments don’t come around often, and “this is your first one, and you should go for it.” So, yeah, that was great of him. But, yeah, I was just thinking of the team at that point and I was like, “Let’s just win it as fast as possible”, because of the net run rate and all that, so I was just thinking in that sense.
– I mean…To be honest, I’m just fascinated and amazed by the fact that you looked at Virat and said, “Why don’t you go for it?”, and he said, “No no no, you listen to me, you go for it!”
– Life has changed drastically for you over the last one year. But I must say it’s incredible how grounded you’ve still remained. There’s not a degree of variation in you, and I think that credit should go to your parents and your friends and generally how you’ve been brought up. How are you managing with all the success?
– In India especially, cricket is a huge, you know, festival. And it’s a religion, to be honest. And there is a lot of attention that you get outside the sport as well. So it’s very important that you, you know, try to as much as possible, obviously you have to, you know, you have to consider what they are showing, and the love that they’re showing. You have to appreciate it. But at the same time you have to make sure that your focus is on the game. It’s pretty easy to like, you know, drift away and, you know, get distracted. So, what I’ve tried to do is as much as possible just focus on the game and not look at the media and stuff like that, because it’s very easy to get distracted by things like those. So I just try to keep things simple and just focus on what I’m doing on the field.
– And it’s hard, because I think when I saw you this season my first question to you was, “How many bubbles have you been in and out of?”, because the quarantine life is hard. It’s difficult. It starts playing on the mind. So have you, kind of, mastered the art of being by yourself and spending time by yourself?
Devdutt Padikkal IPL
– I wouldn’t say mastered… It is still hard, obviously. Quarantines are not easy. It’s a lot of alone time. Initially it was fun, because it was something new that we are not used to. So we were sitting alone in a room and we could do anything we wanted. But after some point you do get exhausted and there isn’t so much you can do after a certain point. So yeah, it is challenging, but at the same time it’s to play the sport that you love. And we are at a difficult stage in the world, so you have to, you know, just get on with it and there’s nothing much you can do about it.
– What is Devdutt Padikkal’s next goal?
– So for me there are a lot of goals in life. Obviously, playing a cricket for India is the ultimate one. And, honestly, I want to win the IPL in the World Cup, all those things like that. So, for me the main goal is to win trophies and, you know, to be part of champion sites and that’s what I’ve always, you know, looked up to, and winning those major tournaments. So, hopefully, I can do that with RCB and the Indian team as my career goes on.
– So that brings me to the next question. Is this the year of RCB?
– That’s a very interesting question. I would hope so. Every year everyone comes with the same hope to win the IPL. You know, every team wants to win it. Hopefully, this year is our year. They’ve had a good score; we’ve had some good replacements coming in as well. So, we look ready for the challenge and, hopefully, we can continue the momentum that we had.
– And one last question before we let you go. Have you set any, you know, sort of goals to mark out for yourself in this IPL, in the remaining of it?
– Nothing specific. I just want to continue to contribute to the side and, you know, help the team win at the end of the day. That’s what every one of us wants. So, no specific individual goals as such, just want to contribute to the team.
– All right. All the best, Dev.
– Thank you.
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