Usually the biggest IPL stories come either from a match or from the auction. This season it was a trade and straightaway there is a chance to see who got the better end of it.Sunday was supposed to be the first time Sanju Samson and Ravindra Jadeja would have been on the same pitch since they moved from Rajasthan Royals to Chennai Super Kings and from CSK to RR. Except one of them didn’t make it to the Assam Cricket Association stadium. And the other had to work around the weather.
Samson is in Guwahati but there was no sign of him at the only practice session CSK had in conditions they’ll be playing the game on Monday. Dewald Brevis was doing running drills. He’s supposed to be recovering from a side injury. Jadeja didn’t have a whole lot of time to nail his left-arm darts – like he ever needs practice there – with rain through the evening eating into RR’s time at the ground.
Their training session (5 to 8pm) and CSK’s (7 to 10pm) were due to overlap. So, a reasonable amount of expectation had built up around what Samson and Jadeja would do this day. Big hugs with old friends. Maybe an absent-minded trip to the wrong dressing room and a “now that I’m here, would you mind letting me know your plans for me in the game tomorrow?”
In the end, it was all a bust. Monday will have to provide all the answers.
Before a ball has been bowled here, there is a feeling that Samson will bring back an old strength of CSK. Because several were bowled at the T20 World Cup and he smashed ’em to all parts. CSK’s title-winning teams were built on opening partnerships. There is significant hope that Samson and Ruturaj Gaikwad at the top is a piece of the puzzle falling in place.
There was a more pressing reason to bring Samson to CSK. For 16 seasons, they have had MS Dhoni behind the stumps. He is injured and can’t start this one. Nobody knows what he’ll be doing come the next one. In extending his IPL career, there has been a feeling that Dhoni wants his legacy in safe hands and he might have seen that it is now. CSK fans have welcomed Samson like he has always been one of their own. The team now has a proven batter to rally around and a solid wicketkeeper to run the play. Samson will have the odds in his favour on Monday. He has 593 runs at an average of 59.30, including five fifties and a hundred, in his first matches of an IPL seasons.
The cost of putting all this in place was Jadeja. This deal wasn’t so much like for like as it was hope for hope. RR are getting, arguably, one of the first stars the IPL ever created. Shane Warne’s Rockstar. Even after all these years, people remember it. There was a young girl who came to watch RR in Guwahati from Meghalaya and she brought a sign that initially had Jadeja’s picture and his old nickname. Now it has signature as well.
RR put that story out on their social media. They also responded to one of ESPNcricinfo’s posts about what people remember from the first season of the IPL with a picture of Jadeja looking at a portrait of the 2008 RR with their IPL trophy. That is how this deal makes sense to them. Well, that and getting Sam Curran, and also Dasun Shanaka now. Three for one.
RR have built academies in Jaipur, Nagpur, Pune, New Jersey and Surrey. They’ve championed young talent. They value unheralded Indian domestic players. They’ve done a lot. But through it all their trophy cabinet contains just that one from 18 years ago. They’ve progressed from the league phase just five times. Only the two new teams – Gujarat Titans (4), who have an IPL title already, and Lucknow Super Giants (2) – and Punjab Kings (4), who made the final last year, have had more trouble getting out of the group stage.
When Ravindra Jadeja was Shane Warne’s Rockstar at Rajasthan Royals•Associated Press
So bringing in a player who was part of a winning team, who provided the star turn in one of the greatest T20 finals of all time made sense. Jadeja is also part of a group of 21 players with 500 runs and 50 IPL wickets. That group shrinks to five when the conditions are 1000 runs and 100 wickets. Then two with 2000 runs and 100 wickets. Then one with 3000 runs and 100 wickets. It’s just Jadeja.
“A lot of the time you try and trade and the best trade is where both sides are also happy but also slightly uphappy,” RR head coach Kumar Sangakkara said. “That’s a great trade. To be very honest, we’re extremely sad to see Sanju go. He’s been an incredible player for us, leader, captain. I’ve got to know him very closely over the last few years. But it was inevitable that it was going to happen so I thought we got two very very good players, one incredible legend of the game in Jaddu and Sam who’s matured a lot. It balances our squad very well. And for them, they wanted a next generation leader, a keeper and a wonderful bat.”
Trades are new in T20 cricket but in football they are almost as crucial as the season itself. Fans like winning the transfer window as much as they like winning matches and eat up the drama of deadline-day sales. Wayne Rooney swapping the blue of Everton for the red of Manchester United and going on to become an icon. Luis Suarez arriving in Liverpool in 2011 and scoring goals that didn’t just look like fun it made the opposition look weak. Sergio Ramos arriving in Real Madrid as the most expensive Spanish defender of his time in 2005 and going on to play 16 years for them.
Cricket was late to its league era late and even then its teams liked finding a core of players and sticking to them. If you’re Mumbai Indians, why in the world would you want to give up on Jasprit Bumrah and Suryakumar Yadav and Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya especially considering you found two of them. This is the way most franchises are still looking to build their teams. Find core. Buy them back.
But wouldn’t it be fun if the Samson-Jadeja-Curran trade was the start of something. If more teams are willing to put their star players up if it meant getting another star player in. Like what if Mumbai and Gujarat Titans get together and eventually Jos Buttler starts opening with Rohit and Trent Boult takes the new ball with Kagiso Rabada. Or Sunrisers Hyderabad look to shore up their bowling by bringing in Mitchell Starc from Delhi Capitals even if it means Travis Head going the other way. It’s silly. It’s wishful. It’s never going to happen. Except, if there’s one thing the IPL has taught us, it’s never say never.
Alagappan Muthu is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
