Rahul Tripathi may be underrated but he mustn't be underestimated

15th April 2022, thousands of fans have flocked the Brabourne Stadium to witness the Kolkata Knight Riders take on the Sunrisers Hyderabad. There are a galaxy of stars on show too. Shreyas Iyer is set to take the field, alongside Venkatesh Iyer – someone who has cast himself as India’s premier seam-bowling all-rounder in white-ball cricket. There is a Caribbean flavour as well, with Andre Russell, Nicholas Pooran and Sunil Narine featuring. And there is the prospect of a sumptuous Kane Williamson knock.

Thus, many would’ve been forgiven had they overlooked that Rahul Tripathi – a domestic cricketer who has undergone hours of toil and has almost always come through unscathed, was also playing.

Prior to the 2022 edition, Tripathi had been one of KKR’s most consistent performers. But he was part of a team that also consisted of Dinesh Karthik, Nitish Rana, Shubman Gill, Narine and Russell. It didn’t take anything away from his talent, although the higher star value of the aforementioned meant that Tripathi was often not the player people turned up to watch.

It wasn’t much different on Friday either. Before the match began, those clad in purple and gold were scattered across the Brabourne Stadium. It wasn’t quite as jam-packed as some of the Chennai Super Kings and the Mumbai Indians’ games have been. Yet, it was enough to illustrate that there was a slightly partisan crowd at work.

As the announcer at the venue read out the names of those representing KKR, none evoked as much of a cheer as Shreyas. Russell came very close but it was clear who the crowd had come to watch. Even then, there was a decent amount of cheering for almost every KKR player that came up on the screen. In fact, they made noise with such gusto that it was easy to forget Tripathi – once famously of the KKR parish, was missing altogether.

He wasn’t missing because he wasn’t playing. Instead, he was missing from the KKR team sheet because he was acquired by SRH during the auction – for an amount (INR 9.5 crore) that raised many eyebrows. But an amount that, with each passing day, seems worth every penny.

From a poetic standpoint, that sort of assurance had to come against KKR – a team where Tripathi actually made his name. He burst onto the scene as a precocious youngster when representing the Rising Pune Supergiant(s) and while opening the batting.

At KKR, everyone took notice of him and everyone acknowledged what he was capable of. The irony, however, is that no one really understood what he was actually capable of. Or, more precisely, how good he actually is.

For a large chunk of the KKR-SRH fixture, batting was tough. The ball hooped round corners and the extra pace meant that hitting through the line wasn’t as easy as it usually is. Tripathi, though, barely broke a sweat as he rampaged his way to 71(37).

It wasn’t filled with the sort of marauding strokes Russell brought out towards the end of his essay. Nor was it glittered with the cheekiness that Rana displayed during his knock. But it was a bit of everything. It was cheeky, it was elegant, it was powerful and at times, it was even arrogant (in a good sense obviously), especially when he creamed the ball over extra cover and held the pose – almost pleading to the cameras and the Indian cricketing community to have a closer look at him.

His dexterity, which often materializes in the shots he plays, has, at the cost of sounding ridiculous, pulled him back more than anything else. Not because he doesn’t seem to have clarity about what he is trying, but because people have not been able to streamline him – either as a powerplay specialist, a middle overs dasher or an end-overs finisher.

Tripathi’s ability to bat in different positions has been one of his standout traits. He is flexible and can rip any bowling attack to shreds. But because he has batted in so many places, it has been perceived that he can’t bat at one particular position – again, something that doesn’t make a lot of sense but something that has, rather unwittingly, defined a career that has deserved so much more.

The most distinguishing trait, though, is the selflessness he regularly portrays. At times, it leads to soft dismissals and low scores, meaning that his raw numbers (average basically) aren’t as good as some of his competitors. T20 cricket, however, shouldn’t be based solely on averages. Instead, the role a player performs and the tendency to put the collective in front of his individual accolades is what should count.

Tripathi has not played international cricket so far

In the past few seasons, Tripathi has done that to the tee. But a quick glance at the KKR line-up of 2021 will also tell you that he is the only batter from that bunch to have not played international cricket so far. This isn’t an indictment on how some players are perceived to be better or how they’ve been luckier in getting India gigs. It’s about how unlucky Tripathi has been and how that must change.

In the 2022 iteration of the IPL, Tripathi has blazed away and has single-handedly kept the SRH middle order intact. His outings have been so impactful that the Orange Army have reeled off three consecutive victories, despite having the worst run-rate in the powerplay of all teams.

SRH, as has become the norm, have a slightly threadbare cabinet when it comes to lower middle order batting resources. Tripathi, though, has hardly made them realise it. That alone should tell you how exceptional he has been.

But Tripathi will not worry about his own displays. As long as the team is winning, he will be his bubbly and fidgety self. He won’t even contemplate what the rest of the world is thinking about him or whether he will ever realise his dream of playing cricket for India.

So, it only seems fair that the cricketing community responds to his brilliance by actually giving him the due he deserves. The T20 World Cup might’ve come a little early for Tripathi, considering the current regime doesn’t want to shake things up too much. But if the call-up doesn’t come soon, it might never come at all.

The 31-year-old is underrated – of that there is no doubt. But he must also not be underestimated. Selflessness is a virtue and not a vice in T20 cricket. Yet, if Tripathi continues being ignored, people might start losing faith in that notion a little bit.

More damningly, it could tell the next generation of cricketers that this altruistic, carefree, and self-sacrificing breed of cricket will never work at the top level. That couldn’t be farther from what T20 cricket actually is, and of course, what Tripathi actually is.