Kings XI Punjab batsman Mayank Agarwal has said that he is looking forward to having a breakthrough season in 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).<\/p>\n
The 29 year-old will team up at Kings XI Punjab again with his best friend and best man KL Rahul along with a host of other Karnataka players under head coach Anil Kumble.<\/p>\n
In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Mayank Agarwal said:<\/p>\n
Bio bubbles, testing, protocols, quarantine \u2013 you must be tired of it all.<\/b><\/p>\n
Well, the pandemic has taught me to be appreciative of things. I\u2019m grateful for the lives we have. I\u2019m not going to be sitting in my hotel room and thinking about the restrictions. The fact that we\u2019ve even come close to playing has taken a huge amount of effort from different people, so I\u2019m appreciative of the very fact that cricket is back.<\/p>\n
Also, spare a thought for athletes from other sports in India. They\u2019ve had so much disruption. Personally, I\u2019ve used this time at home to read a lot, do some cooking, help with household chores, do a lot of gardening, and all the things that you generally tend to miss out on with the kind of touring lives we have as cricketers. I\u2019m not complaining at all. Yes, there are rules, I will abide by them and co-operate in whichever way I have to, instead of complaining about the situation. It\u2019s the same for everybody.<\/p>\n
How tough was it, returning to cricket after five months?<\/b>
\nFor the best part of the last ten to 12 years, I\u2019ve been playing professional cricket. So a five-month break hasn\u2019t taken that much of a toll, honestly. The only challenge has been to maintain continuity, which hasn\u2019t always been possible in Bangalore. But in general, it hasn\u2019t been tough for me, personally.<\/p>\n
What are you looking forward to the most this IPL?<\/b>
\nI\u2019ve been scoring runs at different levels, but the fact remains I haven\u2019t had a breakthrough IPL season yet [in ten years now], so I\u2019m looking forward to correcting that. Also, I\u2019m looking forward to being part of a winning IPL team. I came close in 2017 [with Rising Pune Supergiant].<\/p>\n
How does the familiarity with the Kings XI set-up help?<\/b>
\nKL Rahul and\u00a0I started together, played India Under-19 together, we\u2019ve opened in Tests. We\u2019ve been part of a World Cup team. This is his first time as a captain and I\u2019m excited for him. We\u2019ve both played under Anil Kumble at RCB As a coach, Anil bhai has been in his planning and has given us specific roles. When someone gives you clarity to the extent he has, it gives you a clear picture of where you stand and what you should do to get to the next level.<\/p>\n
Will it take some pressure off you, knowing there are some explosive batsmen in the team?<\/b>
\nWe\u2019re a fun group of players at Kings XI. [Chris] Gayle, KL, [Nicholas] Pooran, [Glenn] Maxwell \u2013 all of them love to express themselves on the field. Anytime you go out to bat after, say, a Gayle or Rahul, your job automatically becomes a tad easier because even if one of them has started off well, the pressure isn\u2019t staring at you when you walk in.<\/p>\n
You like opening, but in Kings XI you\u2019ve generally batted at three. You had a few sessions to prepare in Bangalore before flying out. Did you work on anything in particular?<\/b><\/p>\n
As soon as the lockdown was lifted, I started training with my personal coach, RX Murali. I was in touch with Anil\u00a0bhai<\/i>\u00a0regularly during the lockdown period. He was a great source of guidance. He\u2019s studied my game, so he spoke to me about areas I can look at improving, aspects I can consider incorporating, the scoring areas I can possibly open up. Also, I\u2019ve been working on a few things on the mental side of things. So while training, I\u2019ve tried to incorporate all this into practice. A month\u2019s time [in UAE] is good enough for us to assess the wickets and train accordingly. Obviously the conditions will be much different to India in October-November. I think the plans we\u2019ve put in place and the little bit of training we\u2019ve done [in Bangalore] will come in handy.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve been part of the Indian team for over 18 months now. What are your learnings from there?<\/b><\/p>\n
Everyone\u2019s in an environment where they\u2019re striving to learn and pick up new tricks. We feed off each other; there\u2019s no senior-junior thing. Cricket at the highest level is a confidence game, and when you have a captain who is always focusing on the positives, it\u2019s nice to have that reiteration that you\u2019re good enough to tackle any challenge.<\/p>\n
In that time, have there been any specific interactions you\u2019ve had with someone that have helped particularly?<\/b><\/p>\n
I remember feeling a bit of pressure to cement my position in the Test team during the West Indies tour last year. I hadn\u2019t made too many runs in the first Test and in between games Rohit Sharma could sense I was off a bit. He came forward to offer me some guidance, which I am extremely grateful for. We spoke a lot about how that Test series in West Indies was a different challenge for me. I had scored two Half-centuries in the Test series against Australia on the last tour, so he impressed upon me that I shouldn\u2019t let that extra pressure of expectation get to me and overthink the process in the Caribbean. It definitely helped having that chat as I did go into the second West Indies Test in a more relaxed frame of mind.<\/p>\n
Two months later you made your first half century, opened with\u00a0Rohit, and put on a triple-century opening stand.<\/b><\/p>\n
Yes, that was a special partnership at home against South Africa. I really needed a consistent home season and wanted to get a big score after three half-centuries abroad and not converting any of them into a big hundred. It was an amazing experience opening with Rohit and watching his fearless attacking strokeplay from the other end. Apart from that innings being my first Test century, it also happened to be Rohit\u2019s first century as Test opener. But most importantly, we put on a massive opening stand which set the tone for a number of good Test wins during the home season.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve often spoken of RX Murali and Rahul Dravid\u2019s influence, and the positive vibes of the Indian dressing room. Is there anyone else who has been instrumental?<\/b><\/p>\n
Ray Jennings played a big part early on. I interacted with him when I was invited to be part of a talent camp for uncapped Indian players conducted by RCB in late 2010. He was very impressed with my work ethic and ability to play shots at the top of the order, and RCB signed me as one of the uncapped players for the 2011 IPL. What I enjoyed the most about working with Ray during those three seasons at RCB was his honest and direct critical feedback, and he was someone who told you things you didn\u2019t want to hear, and knew when a player needed a dressing down if they were falling out of line. I will always respect those years with him as a coach. It toughened me up to face the challenges of professional cricket.<\/span><\/p>\n When you started off, the perception was that you were suited more to white-ball cricket. Today you\u2019re known to be a formidable red-ball batsman.<\/b><\/p>\n Yes, that was the perception early on, as many had followed my one-day performances in the 2010 U-19 World Cup, and the early seasons in the IPL with RCB. From my point of view, I always knew that to be considered among the great Indian batsmen, I needed to excel at the highest level and play Test cricket for India. The 2017-18 Ranji season was that watershed moment in my career where I improved tremendously as a red-ball player, and that successful Ranji season followed by more red-ball runs for India A in 2018 gave me the confidence in my ability to succeed at Test match level.<\/p>\n A lot has been said already about that Ranji season in 2017-18, where you made 1000-plus runs. Tell us something we don\u2019t know about that season.<\/b><\/p>\n I was\u00a0this<\/i>\u00a0close to being dropped that season. I wasn\u2019t in good form for a couple of months going in. I had a poor 2017 IPL with Rising Pune, and had a bad start to the Ranji season as well with two ducks.<\/p>\n Vinay Kumar has always looked to help and elevate young Karnataka players throughout his career, and that\u2019s something we have always admired about him. More than him just backing me to play another game after those two ducks was his support where he said that he believed in my ability to succeed at this level and it\u2019s not just a matter of one game but that he wanted me to deliver for the team for the rest of the season. It was a huge thing for me that he, as captain, had that trust and faith in my ability. I just feel happy that I could repay his faith in me with a 300 in the next game, and that started off a great run for me in red-ball cricket, both for the rest of the Ranji season and in the India A four-day games leading into my Test debut in Melbourne. That has effected a turnaround of sorts in my career.<\/p>\n The 2020 edition of the IPL is set to begin from September 19th. The games will be played in the UAE across three venues \u2013 Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kings XI Punjab batsman Mayank Agarwal has said that he is looking forward to having a breakthrough season in 2020 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":24431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[712],"class_list":["post-1316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket","tag-mayank-agarwal"],"reading_time":"9 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}