I convinced the team management to make me the captain, last year: Nitish Rana

NEW DELHI: India batter Nitish Rana said he had to convince and answer a lot of questions posed at him from the team management in his attempts to captain Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 2023.

“I had become a senior member of the side in the last 3-4 years. I had got a leadership role in this period. This was started by Baz (former KKR coach Brendon McCullum). He would always encourage me to think like a captain.”

“He said it’s not important that you’d be controlling the game, it’s not important that I will listen to what you say. But you have to keep your brain active about what captaincy is all about. So that helped me a lot,” said Rana to JioCinema.

Rana eventually captained KKR in that season in Shreyas Iyer’s absence, where the team finished at seventh place in the points table. It was the first time Rana captained an IPL team, after having led his former domestic team Delhi in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. For IPL 2024, Rana will be the vice-captain to Iyer, who will be back to leading the two-time championship winning team.

“Unfortunately, Shreyas (Iyer) got injured. There were some problems for sure in the camp because it’s difficult to replace such a senior player. So, someone needed to step up. I went and spoke to coach Chandu Sir (Chandrakant Pandit), CEO Venky Sir (Venky Mysore). I also spoke to Shah Rukh Sir (Shah Rukh Khan) that I am willing to take up the role.”

“A lot of things were asked of me. I was told that the team didn’t want me to experience unnecessary pressure. I told them just one thing, that I enjoy pressure a lot and I play cricket for only these things. So these are the things that went in my favour and I got the captaincy. And I am really proud that I got a chance to lead such a franchise,” added Rana.

Talking of his mindset after becoming the skipper, the left-handed batter said, “I had seen Gautam (Gambhir) bhaiya as captain since I was a child. I had seen a lot of big players captain different teams. I had noticed every small thing of these players. I always kept my eyes and ears open.”

“I want to learn a lot more about the game. I have become a lot more patient now. This wasn’t the case earlier. Rohit (Sharma) bhaiya also gave me a suggestion when we played against Mumbai Indians. He said the more you keep things simple, the better it is. The more you complicate things, there is no limit to that.”

The season is most remembered for Rinku Singh’s five sixes on last five balls of the chase against Gujarat Titans and Rana was very emotional over seeing him take the team to an improbable win.

“It was my second game as captain and I got really emotional after seeing this feat. In the dressing room, I told him I really don’t know how you did this. But, just remember that from here you are capable of doing anything,” he concluded.