Ranji Trophy 2017: Krishnappa Gowtham finds redemption as Karnataka rout Mumbai, make semi-final

Gowtham’s season began on a forgettable note when he was dropped from India A for feigning typhoid and skipping the Duleep Trophy to play the Karnataka Premier League. (Source: Express Photo by Somya Kapoor)

When K Gowtham made his Ranji debut in 2012, Karnataka had never tasted an outright victory over Mumbai in 22 meetings. When he made his re-entry after a three-year wilderness last year, they had beaten them twice, but had stumbled off their lofty pedestal — knocked out in the group stages after two treble-winning seasons. In Nagpur on Sunday, Karnataka inflicted just their third victory over the most-pedigreed domestic side, though not at their competitive best, with Gowtham as the second-innings protagonist.

This was also the season his own and Karnataka’s fortunes began to take a steep parallel ascent. Hitherto, his worst years had coincided with Karnataka’s best, and his breakthrough last season was entwined with a middling time for his state — a thrashing at the hands of neighbours Tamil Nadu snuffed their title prospects. Yet, it was a season that set off bitterly for him, for reasons entirely self constructed. He calls it a “brain-fade”, when he feigned typhoid and skipped a Duleep Trophy match to feature in the Karnataka Premier League, just at a time he had become an India A team regular, and had earned an IPL contract with the Mumbai Indians. He was duly dropped from the A side, made to apologise and spent endless nights brooding on the follies of his impulse.

But it was important that he got over it and re-geared himself ahead of the fresh season. “I buried the issue and put more hours into practising and improving my game, making minor technical changes to my bowling as well as batting. If any, the incidents made me more determined,” he says, after scything through Mumbai’s middle-order with his second five-for of the season to fashion their maiden innings victory over Mumbai, the first the latter had suffered in a Ranji Trophy knockout match.

The word determination sneaks into the conversation several times. “Without determination,” he says, “a spinner of limited capabilities wouldn’t have played these many games or taken these many wickets.” He was not blessed with the ability to turn the ball a mile — he admits he tried, but couldn’t. He couldn’t show off any of the modern-day cutting-edge arcanery, like the doosra or the carrom ball, again he tried but couldn’t. He was a line-and-length container, who rather bored batsmen to their fall, unless the surface was turning square.

But he kept on improving studiously. “I was gutted when I was dropped after three games in my first season. Then I introspected and realised I had to improved. I sought the help of (EAS) Prasanna sir. He soothed me saying that I needn’t worry too about variations, rather bring subtle variations into my bowling,” he says.

The master spinner taught him how to mix up his pace, to bowl more outside the off-stump and maximise the amount of bounce the tall bowler can extract. Then, in his comeback season, Karnataka’s bowling coach Mansur Ali Khan suggested a change in his run-up. He asked him to run straighter than diagonally. Subsequently, fewer deliveries drifted down the leg. Then, there was a lot of self-learning. “I would watch R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, and take notes in terms of the fields they set and how they respond to a particular situation,” he says.

His numbers attest to his giant leap of faith in the last couple of seasons—a haul of 27 wickets at 19.51 last season and 34 wickets at 21.67 this season. What these numbers don’t show is the impact he can make. For instance, on Sunday, he nailed a stubborn Akash Parkar, who stuck around for 186 deliveries and frustrated the bowlers. He then slit through the lower-order batsmen, something he has excelled this season. “As much as the five-wicket hauls, it makes me happy if I can provide the vital breakthroughs for the team,” he says.

On a lighter vein, he’s happy that he’s living up his moniker, “Bhajji”, something that has stuck to him since his club days, for his action’s irrepressible likeness to Harbhajan Singh’s. But his ambitions doesn’t stop here. He wants to win the Ranji Trophy for Karnataka, which would cap off a remarkable redemption-narrative for himself and the side.

Brief scores: Mumbai 173 and 377 (Surya Kumar Yadav 108, Akash Parkar 65, Shivam Dube 71; K Gowtham 6 for 104) lost to Karnataka 570 by an innings and 20 runs.