Kagiso Rabada In Two Acts
Kagiso Rabada In Two Acts
In the lead-up to the T20 World Cup, I caught up with Kagiso Rabada - here are two of the subjects we discussed: his process and motivation.
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Act I
When he goes for a net session, Kagiso Rabada carries with him two balls. A new ball and an old ball. He also gets there with a set plan. The plan is informed by what he is working on. His plan is not affected by who the batter is, Rabada does not pay attention to that. His only focus is his bowling.
Kagiso Rabada is a technician and understands that the only way he can do that is if he keeps things as simple as possible. “I give myself every opportunity to get better during practice,” says Rabada.
During pregame training, Rabada is consistent in what he works on; he mixes up his lengths. He bowls some length balls, and a few short balls - perfume balls are always handy when you want to rattle a batter. Perfume balls because when executed well enough, short balls pass close to the batter’s nose, close enough that the batter can smell the leather.
Rabada also sprinkles in a few yorkers, some cutters and other slower ball deliveries. With each delivery, the focus is on landing the ball in the right area, not what the batter is doing. The aim is to develop mastery. Consistency is the path to mastery. Rabada now knows what works for him and what doesn’t. He works on what works and engages in deliberate practice.
The fewer things Rabada works on during practice, the higher his chances of himself engaging in targeted learning, deep practice, which increases learning velocity.
The more consistent the training, the more myelin one develops. Every human movement, thought, or feeling is a precisely timed electric signal travelling through a chain of neurons - a circuit of nerve fibres. Myelin is the insulation that wraps around circuit nerve fibres in the brain and increases signal strength, speed and accuracy. So, the more Rabada fires a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent his movements become.
Consistency is the path to mastery and Kagiso Rabada is relentless in his quest for mastery.
In March 1981, Geoffrey Boycott faced one of the most brutal overs he had ever had to navigate in his career. The over was bowled by Michael Holding. Holding does not think he ever bowled faster than that Saturday at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown. He also claimed the wickets of Ian Botham and David Bairstow that day, but it is his over to Boycott that many still remember. It was THE OVER.
Boycott faced six deliveries, did not get a single run and was dismissed on the last ball. It was six balls of torture. The West Indies bowling attack had Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner. It was an incessant barrage of aggressive pace. But, during that Michael Holding over, Boycott would have gladly faced the other three all day than face Holding.
For the West Indies supporters who were present on the day, it was six balls of theatre. Holding subjected Boycott’s technique to an examination. Throughout the over, Holding was a step ahead of Boycott.
Michael Holding seemed to just run up from his mark, release the ball the moment he reached the crease and make the ball exactly where he wanted it to go. It was as if he had the ball on a string and was just putting it precisely where he wanted. That kind of bowling is a result of mastery.
In one of his teachings on enlightenment, the Japanese Zen master Dōgen said, “Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”
A bowler’s path to mastery is the same, it goes from simplicity to complexity, and then back to simplicity again. At 27, Rabada has gone through the cycle. He has now distilled his process.
When Kagiso Rabada was 16 and playing for the Gauteng Under-19 team, his strength was in how he nailed the fundamentals. That was one of his strengths, his ability to do the basics right. “He did the basics well, especially hitting the top of off-stump, and that separated him from other young bowlers. That ability put him on the same level as first-class players,” says Enoch Nkwe, Rabada’s then-coach at Gauteng Under-19.
After moving up to the Proteas, Rabada was exposed to a wider world of bowling. A world bigger than what he had been accustomed to. Rabada found that there was so much to learn. Rabada has always been an inveterate student of the game. On the international circuit, he found himself in the company of greats and legends. He was like a kid in a candy shop; there were so many new things that he could add to his arsenal.
The game was also changing, bowlers were trying to keep pace with the evolution of the game brought on by T20 cricket. Like any other bowler, he expanded his arsenal.
Years later, while everyone keeps on adding components to their bowling, diversifying their portfolio of deliveries, Kagiso Rabada is going in the opposite direction. He has simplified his game. Over 80% of Rabada’s slower-ball deliveries are leg cutters, the same delivery he was bowling as a teenager. Only now, he has mastered it.
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Act II:
When he was 14, Rabada bowled what his father would later recall as the fastest delivery he had seen until that point. St. Stithians were struggling to take the last wicket in a timed match. Rabada put his hand up, his captain threw the ball at him, and with his first delivery of the over, Rabada sent the stumps cartwheeling.
On 10 July 2015, Kagiso Rabada made his ODI debut. In his first over, Rabada conceded six runs: one wide, four byes and one run off the bat. It could have been nerves. The first three deliveries of his second over were dot balls, and he made history with the last three deliveries:
Kagiso Rabada’s fourth delivery was pitched up pitched, aimed at middle and off stumps. Tamim Iqbal thought the ball would hold its line. It didn't. Rabada bowled him out for a 13-ball duck. Rabada angled the fifth delivery at Litton Das’ pads. Litton flicked it straight to Farhaan Behardien at midwicket for an easy catch.
Rabada’s last delivery was quicker and angled at Mahmadullah's pads. The delivery was not as full as the one that dismissed Litton Das; it was on a good length. Mahmadullah tried to work it to leg side, but he missed it and was trapped lbw. In his second over in ODIs, Kagiso Rabada had a hattrick.
With his hattrick against Bangladesh, Rabada became the second player in the history of cricket to take a hattrick on debut in an ODI match. Taijul Islam was the first bowler to do it just a year earlier. He also took his first five-wicket haul for the Proteas. Six wickets for 16 runs at an economy of two runs an over.
Hattricks don’t happen a lot.
What happens a lot of times is that a good delivery might go for four; the batter plays a shot and edges it through the slip cordon or miscues the ball and it flies over the boundary rope. These things happen a lot in cricket, a good delivery runs to the boundary or gets hit for a six, fortuitously or by design. This is the inherent cruelty of cricket.
“It is what it is,” says Rabada. “Those things happen a lot. It is easy to get discouraged when those things happen. But, it shoudn’t dishearten you. You keep at it.”
Whenever that happens, on the long walk back to his mark, Rabada salutes the batter. He does it in his head. There is no point in doing it openly.
It also happens that one moment you bowl a jaffa of a delivery that beats the batter and leaves them rattled. The next instance you commit an error, miss your length by a few inches and are hit for a six. Sometimes it is not just one delivery that goes wrong. Sometimes it is two, three, or four deliveries. Sometimes an entire over is a shambles.
Whenever that happens, Rabada gets angry with himself. “I hold myself to a higher standard, so I get frustrated with myself when something like that happens,” says Rabada.
On the way back to his mark, he tries to make corrections in his head. It works most of the time and he is able to bounce back. Sometimes it does not work. Sometimes it’s not the over that is a shambles but a whole spell. Sometimes things don’t go well in an entire match or even a series. Failure is an anathema for Kagiso Rabada, and it leaves him discouraged.
It takes grit to bounce back. According to researcher and writer Angela Duckworth, grit either grows from inside out or outside in. Kagiso Rabada’s grit grows from inside out. When he feels in a rut or discouraged because nothing is going well, Kagiso Rabada follows the same advice that he gives Lungi Ngidi when he feels discouraged by his own bowling.
“When I am a little down KG always reminds me: ‘You’re an IPL winner, twice, and you’ve won man of the match awards. So why are you sitting here denouncing yourself?’” Lungi Ngidi shared.
When he is feeling down, Rabada transports himself back in time. He goes back to the wicket-taking delivery he bowled to close out the game for his school. He replays the second over he bowled on his ODI debut in his head. Reliving these moments restore Rabada’s faith in himself and his process.
“When I am feeling a little down, I think about those moments,” says Rabada. “I also think about the Cubs game where Jayden Broodryk and myself put together a 53-run partnership to win the match for Gauteng. I think about the Under-19 World Cup and the role I played to help the team win the title. Those moments remind me that that I can do anything if I set my mind to it.”