CHENNAI : At the post-match press conference following Chennai's six-wicket win on Friday, Eric Simons kept coming back to one word when describing their batting methodology. 'Freedom.'
This freedom has helped them create a sort of environment where players are unshackled from the fear of failure.
This sort of atmosphere has allowed players to not only embrace the best version of themselves. It has also helped them evolve as batters. Ajinkya Rahane reinventing himself as a boundary-hitter in the sport's shortest format is, for instance, the best illustration of the 'freedom' Simons spoke about.
In the four Indian Premier League (IPL) editions from 2019 to 2022, Rahane had hit 15 sixes across 32 matches. In 15 matches for Chennai from the beginning of last year, he's already on 18. The South African coach explained what the franchise has done. "Jinks (Rahane) will be aggressive but he will be different to (Shivam) Dube," Simons said. "You go and play your own game with freedom and expression but do it your way. That's important."
What Simons was talking about was how the two batters approach their game. Dube likes to muscle the ball off the spinners while Rahane handles pace better. Both of them access different areas of the ground while taking on different bowling types.
He elaborated. "I always say you can't pick six Chris Gayle's in your line-up; you have to have that balance. It's very important that Rahane doesn't try and be like or Gayle or that Gayle doesn't try and be like rahane. It's really about finding your way to do it. Some guys want to play really classic cricket shots and they can still end up making a quick 80 or a 90 or a 100... unlocking who they are but the attitude towards aggressiveness to balls that they can score off with their style."
This sort of effect has rubbed off on the entire team. From the start of the 2021 IPL season, Chennai are the leading six-hitters with 360 (21 ahead of Rajasthan). In terms of fours, they are only fourth best but the most maximum T20 teams are usually the ones who, on average, end up out-hitting the opposition in terms of 6s on a match-by-match basis. Then, it's not a surprise to note that they have won two of the last editions (they topped the maximums for 2021 and finished second in this particular table in 2023).
There are power-coaches for hire whose expertise is talking to players through their swing, the arc, ensuring their body shape is perfectly aligned at the point of impact. Julian Wood, one of the most celebrated power-hitting coaches in the modern game, spoke about it to this daily during an interview in 2021. "Ball exit speed, launch angle, bat speed, generating power through the hips," he had said. "I use weighted balls, weighted bats... what I do with those guys is... I connect their hips... I have bungee (rope) on their hips. Then I will start with weighted balls and weighted bats, Then change that with light balls and light bats. So you have got power which is the heavy staff and speed which is your light base. He talks about his hip a lot so we make his hips very powerful.”
While Chennai use all of those terminologies, they divorce performances from results. "The most important thing is freedom; freedom to express yourself and the freedom to fail," Simons said. "The important thing in a competition like this is to coach people to be themselves. That's the way guys like to play, free them up be it with the bat or the ball. Even some of the hitting we have among the bowlers... it gives us a lot of depth. It allows us to play with freedom and be intimidating to the opposition."
They certainly were against Bengaluru on the opening night when they hit 9 sixes and 10 fours, at the rate of at least one boundary every over. In other words, they hit a six every 12.4 balls. While a sample size of one game is very small, they are the leading six-hitters by this metric — generally considered to be the gold standard — since the beginning of 2021 (14.98).
If they continue in a similar vein to recent seasons, it's hard to not see them progress into the knockout stages once again.
