“Lord Thakur … # Cleanhitting” tweeted Virender Sehwag, the lord of clean hitting himself, a point that Shardul Thakur graciously brought up when his Afghani team-mate Gurbaaz referenced the tweet in their interaction on a post-match IPLT20 video. “Paaji, aapsey hi seekhe tey clean hitting, we are just trying (Learnt from you, only)” Thakur would say.
“No doubt it was a pressure situation but this is what we practice and train for. I am glad I could do it,” he would add. He smashed the spinners Karn Sharma and Bracewell, and also, Mohammad Siraj and Harshal Patel. His coaches in his developmental years and his Ranji team-mates would never be surprised by his batting.
His Ranji team-mate Siddesh Lad, whose father coached Thakur and Rohit Sharma, always saw him as a natural batsman.
“The best part of Shardul is his confidence. No one can match that,” Lad says. “People will be surprised to see his batting but those of us who know him aren’t. I remember once during a Ranji Trophy game, Wasim Jaffer had said that if Thakur takes his batting seriously he can be a good batsman,” Lad had told The Indian Express.
Thakur studied in Swami Vivekananda International school, which also gave India Rohit Sharma. There were early signs of Thakur being capable of changing the course of a game with the bat. Once during a Harris Shield game, Thakur hit six sixes in an over.
To understand Thakur one has to understand Palghar, the small town which is 114 kilometres from Mumbai, where Thakur’s father relied on farming, the primary occupation of the region. A place where people are unafraid to speak their mind, and Thakur is no exception. “That area is known for its hardworking and outspoken people. Fearless and they won’t budge an inch for anyone,” says his friend Ajinkya Naik.
His outspokenness and straight-to-the-point talk has sometimes affected the perceptions about him. There is a famous story in the Chennai Super Kings camp from this season in Dubai when Thakur told MS Dhoni to send him as a pinch hitter as the team top order was failing consistently. The next day, Dhoni decided to send in Sam Curran at No.3!
“He is a man who loves responsibility. Not the type of a guy to keep quiet!” says former India bowler and ex CSK bowling coach L Balaji. “He would ask you, why he wasn’t given a bowl in the end overs. Or in the middle. Or with the new ball. Basically, any situation he thinks he hasn’t been given a go, he would want an answer from you. Just to check if it’s due to better option out there or he was seen as not fitting that role. And then he would work so hard to get that skill and would show you in the nets that he has it. Now, how about giving me that role?!” a laughing Balaji had told this newspaper.
“Just the character you want in a team. And mind you, when I say he would ask a question, it won’t be with any negativity or that he is too upset. He just wants to know what you are thinking and what he can do.”
The ‘Lord’ moniker from the fans is an act of love. Thakur was seen as a bowler who could swing the ball and swing the bat. Not necessarily, consistently well. Other myths too added up. Like him not sharing Shastri’s messages to Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari in the Adelaide Test. Like him, bowling bouncers on a loop. Like him ignoring the team plan of the leg-side attack deployed in Australia and attacking with outswingers and bouncers. It was clear that he has his own mind. Stories tumbled out of how he used to walk up to Dhoni at CSK camp and speak his mind; send me as a pinch hitter, or give me the ball at the death. Shardul, the confident young man. Hence, ‘Lord’.
“Seriously I don’t know who started calling me Lord. But I’m sure it started in a home series against England after we returned from Australia… Just before the IPL. It was a series, where I got a lot of success and mostly after I got two consecutive wickets in an over… From there the name arrived,” Shardul Thakur had once told India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey in a BCCI video. “When I enter the ground, everything is about self-belief and confidence for me. I go in with full confidence. It’s a simple and small mantra for my success and I would like to continue with that.”
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