It was the 16th of February 2015, the day of the IPL auction, a day in which dreams turn into realities, hopes are destroyed and lives are charged, all in one grand show. What decides your fate could be well-thought research and meticulous planning, but it could also just be impulse, the need to outdo a rival, to show everyone who the boss is.
Over the years, many have tried, and failed, to identify a system as to how players are bought and sold. The auction has seen players like Brian Lara, Mahela Jayawardene and Chris Gayle go unsold, while sometimes, some bids for players go through the roof. A case in point was Pawan Negi in the 2016 auction; his base price was 30 Lakh, he was sold for 8.5 crores to the Delhi Daredevils.
On this day, a young spin-bowler from Karnataka was home, gripped to the proceedings on his television, surrounded family and friends.
“I was watching it live at home. All my family and friends were there. I only thought about playing the IPL, hopefully for the Kolkata Knight Riders. When the bid started rising, it was a big surprise to me, as well as my family. It was just a surprise.”
From a base price of 10 lakh, his value would shoot up 24 times, in a battle fiercely contested by the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Delhi Daredevils, before he was sold to the former for a whopping 2.4 crore.
“That was the day my life changed”
As we caught up with KC Cariappa, we were surprised to see how his youthful innocence was still very much in display as he spoke to us about his humble beginnings, his first associations with the game, honing his skills, handling the pressure of being a 2.4 crore man in the IPL and a future in the Indian cricket team.
Born in 1994, KC Cariappa enjoyed watching a golden generation of Indian cricket. This was the generation that was born after India became world beaters, a decade after the 1983 World Cup win. They were toddlers when VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh destroyed the Aussies in a closely fought series in 2001. Their hearts were broken when the Sourav Ganguly led Indian team lost the 2003 final to the same foe. They were obsessed with cricket.
“When I was 16, I started my career with the leather ball. I played for a club in Malleshwaram, Before that it was only with the tennis ball, out on the street, with my friends.”
Tennis ball cricket would have more of an impact on him than most players. “For my kind of bowling, it helped that I played with the tennis ball as well. From a junior age, I couldn’t get much grip on the leather ball, but after practicing more, I got a rhythm. I worked on strengthening my fingers to hold the ball”.
All cricketers in India come to a crossroad where they have to decide whether their future lies in the game of cricket. For KC, it was during his U-19s for the state. “After 16, when the U-19s came, I thought I wanted to be a professional player. I left my education and everything for the game.”
Taking such a decision does have repercussions. In India, much is made about the pressure to take your studies seriously. For KC to decide to leave his education, it would require a lot of courage. Speaking about how his parents handled his decision, he said, “They were not happy with me leaving education. They told me I could play the game until I was 20, and if nothing happened until then, then come back into education.”
With a middle-class upbringing, there was more pressure on KC to make a living for himself. While his parents placed their trust in him, he had one eye on the future.
“My parents are actually very cool. For me, I was from a humble background, I thought if I didn’t get selected until I was about 20, I should stop and take up a job to support my livelihood.”
He put in the hard yards, worked on his skill and waited for his chances. He spent two years with U-19 State team, where he impressed with his bowling, picking up wickets aplenty. Then came the Karnataka Premier League, a T20 league featuring Karnataka’s best upcoming talents, pitted against each other.
He had plenty of kind words to say about Sudhindra Shinde, the coach of the Bijapur Bulls in the KPL. “At that time, I was selected only because of him. He gave me a lot of chances and the wickets I took, were all thanks to him. Because of him, I went to the KPL, followed by the IPL.”
The league would go on to be a stepping stone for players who wanted to make it to the IPL. “When 2014 KPL was happening, all of us were junior cricketers. It was a very good channel for us. I was the 3rd highest wicket-taker, that led to the call from KKR. So many juniors like me have played the IPL thanks to the KPL”
Being the 3rd highest wicket-taker certainly helped, but he had to do much more to impress the KKR. We probed further.
“KKR called our video analyst Srikant, who took me to the KKR team. I practiced there for 2 weeks, and after that, I got into the auction, and got into the team. It was all from KPL.”
While he summarised it in a couple of sentences, making a mark in a two-week camp is much harder than it sounds. He was surrounded by a number of players who were all fighting it out for that elusive spot.
Speaking about the high intensity KKR camp, he said, “After the KPL, I immediately went to the camp which was happening in Hyderabad. I was training with Sunil Narine, I was in direct interaction with him. He taught me a lot of things, a lot of tricks. How you should bowl, the workouts for the fingers. For us, its all about the fingers. He taught me everything.”
KC Cariappa and Sunil Narine both have the tags of being ‘mystery spinners’. While spinning the ball is an art in itself, these bowlers can spin it both ways, making it almost impossible for batsmen to read which way the ball would spin.
While describing the contrast in his art to Narine’s, he elucidated, “I am normally called a leg-spinner, but what I bowl is actually a carrom ball. When Narine came into bowl, everyone called him a mystery spinner, because he could spin it both ways. I have the same action, but while the carrom ball is my stock, Narine’s stock ball is an off-spinner.”
After the auction, he walked into the dressing room, for the first time as KKR player, and he knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Not only was he a young upcoming bowler, he also had to play with the tag of being a 2.4 crore player.
He provided us fascinating and raw insight into what it felt like to be an IPL player for the first time. “It was amazing. When I went there, on the first day, everyone was in the dressing room. Gambhir and Kallis, I had never seen legends like that in person, only on television, so it was very exciting.”
It was only going to get better for him. For a person who still seemed slightly shy, a meeting with KKR’s owner Shah Rukh Khan at the end of the first IPL match was a dream come true. The ‘King Khan’ walked to him, hugged him and welcomed him to the team. KC admits to us that he was surprised that one of the most famous men in the world knew his name.
For the entirety of the 2015 season, KC would play for the KKR only once. His captain Gambhir, who KC admits always trusted him, gave him the ball during the power-play in a crunch match against the RCB.
He had an immediate impact. His first wicket in the Indian Premier League was the game’s biggest superstar - AB De Villiers. Unfortunately, that was to be the only piece of IPL action for him that year.
Things had to be different when he returned, we assumed. We asked him if people saw him in a new light. “My friends didn’t pull my leg after I came back. Everyone supported me at the KSCA, my friends, my family. I was very confident after playing at the IPL level.”
The stint at KKR was to be short-lived. The next season, he was picked up by the Kings XI Punjab for 1/3rd of the price he was bought at. “You should always motivate yourself. We should believe in yourself. In a year, you will get 2 - 4 IPL matches. If you don’t perform, you don’t get anything. Then you have to return to club cricket, and still keep at it. IPL is a format in which anything can happen. You should remain positive.”
While he is shy and soft-spoken, he is definitely not short on confidence. He’s staring at a long season ahead of him, starting with the KPL from the 16th of September. Before we let him go, we wondered what’s next for KC Cariappa. “The KPL is starting, it’s a huge tournament here. Personally, it has a special place in my heart. It’s been a life-changer. Last year, I got the purple cap. I don’t want to leave it for anyone this year.”
As he shook hands with us and left us with a smile on our faces, we had time to reflect.
KC Cariappa’s story is fascinating. He was a bowler who was just going about his way, before being catapulted into the spotlight after the IPL auction. The opportunity might have come sooner than anticipated, but he had lapped it up with glee and is clearly thankful to have shared the dressing room with a number of greats.
At 22, he’s made more headlines than most cricketers have in their entire lifetime. At this point of his career, he wants to get back to the basics, do what he does best and work hard to attain the India cap. While time will tell how far KC Cariappa progresses, his resolve to make it big is clearly visible and his carrom-ball will be the one to watch out for.
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