Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy: Clarity of role, mental switch help TN's N Jagadeesan rediscover form
CHENNAI: N Jagadeesan has cited clarity of role and mental switch as the reasons behind his purple patch in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. After a quiet domestic season last time, the 25-year-old is now the second-highest scorer in the tournament with 322 runs — four runs behind Punjab's Prabhsimran Singh in the chart.
Before this edition of the T20 tournament, he was used as a floater for Tamil Nadu. Though he has opened, he played primarily in the middle-order. With the likes of Murali Vijay, Washington Sundar and Vijay Shankar in the mix, Jagadeesan didn't get as many opportunities as he would have expected. He managed only 44 runs in three matches he played in the 2019-2020 season. The poor run of form started with the Vijay Hazare Trophy — he scored a mere 53 runs in four matches.
However, the inner demons of doubts and frustration were put to bed during the time he spent with the Chennai Super Kings. According to him, a stint with the Chennai batting coach Michael Hussey in the UAE did a world of good in overcoming the rough phase. This, he says, was more to do with the mental training than tweaking his technique. That he debuted for Super Kings after being in bench for two years also boosted his confidence.
"More than the technical part, I worked on my mindset towards a game, in terms of preparation and shot selection," Jagadeesan told this daily. "I was fortunate to have had a lot of conversations with Hussey during the IPL. The changes that he told were not massive but there were many small things to brings out better results. And here, I had many conversations with Dinesh Karthik which helped."
With five key players missing in this edition, Jagadeesan was asked to open the innings along with his childhood friend C Hari Nishaanth, who also played for Coimbatore with him in the age-group tournaments. Jagadeesan has opened the innings for the Tamil Nadu Premier League team Dindigul Dragons and in the state-level matches and is no stranger to that position. A stable spot in the XI helped him to "express myself better", which was evident in the tournament where he hit four half-centuries on the bounce. Of the six matches, he remained unbeaten thrice and took the team home while chasing.
"I trained myself to have a gameplan before every match. It's like connecting every dots, mentally, during preparation. It was more of mental training... how to prepare for a game beforehand rather than just going to the match and reacting to the ball and the situation," he added.
That apart, he also emphasised on the fact that facing quality international bowlers such as Lungi Ngidi and Josh Hazlewood in the nets during IPL improved his game and prepare well in advance. "I and Lungi had many discussions during that time on how I can get better among other things. It was important because you are getting advice from an international bowler who is a notch higher than domestic players."
With Tamil Nadu facing Rajasthan in the semifinal in Ahmedabad on Friday, Karthik's men would want him to carry forward his form to go one step further from last edition and clinch a title.