Kumar Kushagra's big IPL payday: 'At one point, as the bids kept going higher, I stopped watching'

Last week, Kumar Kushagra wouldn't have answered calls from unknown numbers, dismissing them as telemarketing scams. But over the past couple of days, he has tried to respond to as many of them as possible. Some of these have been from people in the set-up at Delhi Capitals, who signed him for Rs 7.2 crores (abiut US$867,000) at the IPL auction. Others have been from journalists, local news channels, and people known to him and the family.

"It's been overwhelming," Kushagra admits the evening after the life-changing bid. "It's one thing knowing you're going to get picked, but honestly, I wasn't prepared for this kind of attention. At one point as the bids kept going higher, I stopped watching. We were at a Ranji Trophy camp in Ranchi and my team-mates were continuously knocking on the door. I couldn't not watch after they stormed in."

Capitals staved off fierce competition from Gujarat Titans. Chennai Super Kings too seemed keen initially but withdrew from the race at the Rs 60 lakh mark. For the next five minutes or so, Kushagra sat stunned. After the hammer went down one final time against his name, he rang his parents back in Jamshedpur.

"I started crying, I'd become a little emotional," he says with a chuckle. At the other end, Shashikant, his father, was equally lost for words. Only a few seconds earlier, he had been the toast of his workplace's WhatsApp group.

"Everyone was demanding a big party," says Shashikant. "It felt like a big celebration. Honestly, we were watching it on TV at home. We just didn't know how to react, because we weren't prepared for this. We would've been happy to see him just get selected. It didn't matter which team he went to."

Kushagra's father is a district commissioner at the Goods and Services Tax department in Jamshedpur and his mother a home-maker. His two younger sisters are academically inclined; one wants to become a doctor. Kushagra was himself a keen student, and didn't compromise on his studies until he was in middle school. But once he got into the Jharkhand Under-16s as a 12-year-old, cricket took over completely.

That feels like long ago, but he is still only 19. Until four years ago, when was in contention for India Under-19s on the back of a sensational run in the CK Nayudu Trophy in 2019-20, Shashikant was his de facto trainer and Bob Woolmer's The Art and Science of Cricket his coaching manual.

"I would carefully make notes from Woolmer's book and have a local coach, Deepak Dey, break it down for Kumar to implement at the nets," Shashikant says.

"I wasn't too convinced about him spending a lot of time travelling to and from school, the cricket academy and home. I somehow managed to arrange nets behind our home. We had a pitch made and Deepak bhai would spend hours throwing balls at him or giving him catching practice. These notes and practical lessons were Kumar's early teachers. But once he was in the India Under-19 camp, I knew he was in the safe hands of Rahul Dravid and the NCA team."

At Capitals, Kushagra will be in the hands of Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly. Ganguly first saw Kushagra in August, when he organised a conditioning camp for local Indian players.

He had been impressed with Kushagra's temperament in the Deodhar Trophy around then, in which he represented East Zone. Kushagra was East Zone's second-highest scorer in that tournament, with 227 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 109.13. All these runs came mostly at No. 7.

Kushagra is glad that his most impactful knock at the Vijay Hazare Trophy, 67 off 36 balls against Maharashtra, happened to be livestreamed.

"Ganguly was massively supportive of Kumar even at the trials," Shashikant says. "He was called for three camps by DC. So somewhere we felt he had a chance."

Kushagra made a mark early as a teenager, but breaking into teams as the first-choice wicketkeeper was tough. He was part of India's Under-19 World Cup squad in 2020, but he was mainly in the reserves; the team management preferred Dhruv Jurel as their first choice. Kushagra got just one game, against Japan, in which he remained not out, but it wasn't even a footnote in the tournament.

Then Covid struck and cricket came to a grinding halt, but once it resumed, Kushagra got his big break. Ishan Kishan was on the fringes of the Indian team and wasn't always a regular for Jharkhand. Kushagra went from being a reserve to first choice. In a way, it's this change that has brought him much game time over the past two seasons.

He first displayed his calibre in a Ranji Trophy game against Tamil Nadu in the 2021-22 season, when he made a fighting half-century to rescue Jharkhand in a tottering chase on a rank turner. At 49 for 4, their target of 212 seemed unattainable. Kushagra dug in to make 50 off 121 balls to lay the foundation for a two-wicket win.

Then in the pre-quarter-finals against Nagaland, he made 266. En route to that score, he broke Javed Miandad's record to become the youngest player to score 250 or more in a first-class innings. Those two performances gave him belief, and a long chat with Kishan before the start of this season changed things.

"I met Ishan [Kishan] bhai in Ranchi. We had a long chat. One of the things he asked me at that camp was if I was happy with the batting time I was getting," Kushagra remembers. "He told me how as a youngster, you can't be satisfied batting for 20 minutes daily. He used to come an hour early and then do a batting session late. I followed that. We always had net bowlers, so the onus is always on you to drive things. After that chat, I kind of realised how I had to put in more effort to make things happen."

The change in regimen brought about more confidence and an improved sense of understanding of his own game. Kushagra was now growing more comfortable adapting to different batting roles within the team. He'd always been a good wicketkeeper, and now that his batting was coming along well, there was a renewed sense of hope that a call-up wasn't far away.

As for Capitals, they struggled to pick replacements mid-season this year for the injured Rishabh Pant. They had a look at four wicketkeepers and eventually picked Bengal's Abishek Porel, who was excellent behind the stumps in the matches he played, but couldn't quite give them batting muscle. This time around, they decided to earmark a budget to acquire another keeper in case Pant isn't able fill the role as he continues to recover from a car crash last December.

"I see this as an opportunity to learn and get better," Kushagra says. "I mean, who doesn't dream of playing in the IPL? I've grown up with the league.

"We've all grown up watching our heroes, trying to mimic them. Like sometimes, I've tried imagining and replaying the way MS Dhoni pulls off those stumpings in one single motion. And then you quietly realise from within why he is what he is and how long a way I still have to go."

Kushagra comes from the same state, but hasn't yet been able to meet Dhoni. Maybe it's meant to be in 2024. "He's a hero to us not because he's from the same state, but because he's MS Dhoni. Meeting him will be an unreal feeling."

Shashikant has only one piece of advice for his son, and it has been a constant over the years. Kushagra has it on a piece of paper, pasted on the door of his room.

"Seekhna bandh, toh jeetna bandh." (When learning stops, winning stops)