"You'll 100 percent play for India" - Shivam Mavi discloses Dale Steyn's prediction, lessons from IPL 2022

IPL 2022 was particularly good for Indian fast-bowlers. From Umran Malik cranking up searing pace and pocketing a dozen 'fastest-delivery' awards to Arshdeep Singh putting up an exhibition of yorkers to Avesh Khan recreating his devastating lengths and seam movement from last year, the Indian speedsters ruled the roost.

Add Mohsin Khan, T Natarajan, Prasidh Krishna, Mukesh Choudhary, Yash Dayal and Kuldeep Sen to the list and you have an assortment good enough to badly confuse a 70-year-old who grew up seeing India deploying five spinners.

That most of these guys outshined both Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar in Indian conditions should tell you enough about the country's fast-bowling future. The spots in the national team are so limited you have to stand out at all costs.

But how do you do that? Do you focus on your strengths or do you look at everyone else, pick up their traits and add them to your repertoire? How do you tackle the sudden surge of fame? What about price-tag pressures? How do you mentally recover from injuries that might hamper your entire season?

To answer all this, Sportkseeda got in touch with a player who experienced it all and more in IPL 2022 - Shivam Mavi. Before the aforementioned names even came up, Mavi and Kamlesh Nagarkoti were the fast-bowling sensations on the block, destined to do great things from the start.

Both were signed by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the 2018 auction for around ₹3 crore each with an image of bullying the who's who of the Under-19 world with their incisive and no-nonsense fast-bowling. However, with most of Nagarkoti's career hampered by injuries, Mavi soon became KKR's flagship project.

The Noida-born bowler picked up five wickets in his debut season before 2019 was ruined by a stress fracture. But he continued the steady improvement with nine scalps in 2020. His economy rate - a major talking point in 2018 - came down from 9.64 to 8.15 as well. In no time, he became known for getting the opposition's best batters out.

Then came 2021. Mavi wasn't trusted much in the first half, but when most pacers - young and experienced, Indian and overseas - struggled in the second phase in the UAE, Mavi roistered. He picked up wickets in almost every match, bowled a career-best spell of 4/21 and hardly let his economy rate go past seven.

His tally of 11 wickets and a display of responsibility were the main reasons why KKR splurged ₹7.25 crore on him in the 2022 auction, fighting off his home side Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). Nagarkoti and Prasidh were allowed to go and the general observation was that the two-time champions had found a leader for their Indian pace-attack - their project was ready for a full-fledged season.

But that didn't happen. Mavi played just six games, the least in an IPL season so far. His five wickets were all big names again, but they didn't produce the kind of impact he had in 2021. He looked effective in patches, but his economy rate swelled to 10.32. KKR also struggled and couldn't finish in the top four.

Mavi explained the reasons behind it to Sportskeeda in a way perhaps only he could. Questions about KKR, the auction, a vexing injury, the lessons he took, the feeling of meeting his idol, and his goals and aspirations, were all treated with identical soft-spokenness.

In a way, through his answers, the 23-year-old gave away his standout quality that might help him rise to the competition - pragmatism.

---

Excerpts from Shivam Mavi's interview with Sportskeeda

Q. What do you make of this season for KKR? What were the positives and where would you like to improve?

Shivam Mavi: I see this season as a positive because we had a very young team. We signed a lot of youngsters at the auction who aren't very experienced. But they are very good players who'll improve a lot and strengthen our bench. The stronger our bench is, the better it will be for our team.

If you look at 2021, we reached where we did because of our bench strength. We didn't do well in the first seven matches but did so well in the next seven that we reached the final.

Secondly, our coaches and management were really good, always kept the environment positive, and hardly talked about anything negative. That's what I see as the positives for this season.

As for improvements, we'll look to work on our weaknesses and plan better next season.

Q. Let's start about your year from the beginning - your bid went to ₹7.25 crore at the auction. Did you watch it live? What was your reaction when you saw your home team, LSG, and KKR go against each other?

Shivam Mavi: (Laughs) Honestly, I was in Bengaluru nursing a heel injury. I kept the TV on and when my name came up, I put it on mute and stopped watching because auctions are a bit difficult to watch! But it felt really good when KKR took me back because I had been there for four years.

Lucknow went till ₹7 crores but KKR put in the final bid. In my heart, I always wanted to go back to KKR because in those four years I had built some strong bonds.

Q. When you go for such a price tag, people tend to talk. A lot of things start to get judged on the price. How does a young player like you handle that?

Shivam Mavi: I have always believed that if you do well in one season and go for a big price in the next, it's because you are valuable to the team. So I won't call it pressure, it's just the value you add to the team. I don't carry that price tag in my mind to the ground because then you can't perform.

You should always think that you are an integral member of the team and that's why you have been signed. If you focus on that, the performances will follow. Whenever I've had a bad season, I always try to focus on improving myself without taking any pressure. That's what I did this season as well.

Q. You played the first match and not the second. The rest of the season was a start-stop affair as well. You talked about the injury. What exactly was happening?

Shivam Mavi: I had a heel injury and it was so painful that I couldn't build my rhythm well in the first few matches. I talked to the coaches and the management and they said it was because I hadn't got much time to bowl since the injury.

I was undergoing rehab at the KKR Academy and there I was bowling at 50-60 percent fitness and then slowly took it to 100 percent. As a sportsperson, you have to bear a bit of pain but this time it was too much. I was managing with pain killers and sleeping pills but couldn't follow my work ethic properly as some things do get restricted in practice.

When I spoke to the management, they said the same thing: "You haven't bowled much of late so your rhythm doesn't seem too good in the matches so to avoid any major problems, let's play you after some time." I missed a couple of games and then played again. Then it didn't go great again and so they told me I needed to bowl more. So I bowled a lot in the nets to get my rhythm back and to better my execution.

Is that what also affected your economy rate? There was that 30-run over against LSG as well...

I tried to focus on my strengths and bowl a few length balls, but it wasn't coming off 100 percent as I wanted. If you practice something a lot, you'll successfully execute it 90-95 percent of the time and I couldn't practice well because I didn't have much time.

As for that LSG game, if you look at the three overs, it went normally. But in the end, what I had planned just didn't come off. I was bowling off-cutters but the leg-side boundary was small, I think it was just 68-69 meters, and [Marcus] Stoinis was moving to cover the off-stump. I tried yorkers but they didn't come off either. It was the most difficult over of the innings as well. I won't make any excuses, I just wasn't able to execute what I had in my mind...

Overall, it wasn't a totally bad season but more like an average one. If you leave those one or two matches out, the rest were good because I bowled at the start and at the death, usually picked up one wicket in the first three overs after conceding 14-15 runs. The main thing was why those two matches went badly. The reason was I just couldn't execute my plans. If you don't do that at this level, you are surely going to get smashed.

It's very simple, if you can't execute your plans well, you'll get hit for runs and the economy rate will go up as well. Last year, I was just executing these plans - hitting a good length, bowling yorkers at the death and using cutters if the pitch isn't supportive while mixing it with yorkers. It didn't come off this year.

Q. It must be frustrating for you. What was the communication from the management and the captain during all this?

Shivam Mavi: Exactly, it's frustrating for any player because it runs in your mind that you have to make the chances count. I used to ask the coaches, "I am in this situation, what should I do?" and they always replied normally saying, "No problem, it happens to everyone. Just focus on your practice and work on your plans and strengths."

They always kept a positive frame of mind by saying things like, "You are an integral member of the team. You are trying your best and it's no problem if it's not coming off how you want it to. It can happen to anyone and at any time. What's important is how quickly you bounce back from it." It felt good so that's what I worked on.

Q. But you still picked up five wickets, which were all important ones. This was a pattern with you last season as well. Is that something that drives you - getting the opposition's best players out?

Shivam Mavi: Yes, you get motivated because it feels good to get the opposition's main players out. Throughout my IPL career, almost all of my 25-30 wickets have been of the top players and that's because I either bowl in the top-six overs or at the death where the best players take most of the strike. I just try to plan as well as possible and execute it on the field, which has also got me success more often than not.

Q. You must have picked up some lessons from this phase?

Shivam Mavi: The lesson I took is that whenever you go through a bad time, you just have to focus on your hard work. Moreover, during good times, people lose focus and avoid thinking about the mistakes but even then you should keep trying to get better.

I try to identify my mistakes in both phases and get better. If I give away 30 runs on a day then I will focus on reducing at least four to five runs in the next game.

Q. Bharat Arun became the team's bowling coach this year. He's a former India coach and has a reputation for building India's fast-bowling battery. Can you please speak in detail about the things you learned from him about your bowling and the changes he might have helped you to make?

Shivam Mavi: I first met Bharat sir at the KKR Academy. He was in Mumbai and started working with me from there. He hadn't seen me bowl much before so asked me to bowl in front of him. I bowled in the nets a bit. As I said, I was injured at the time so he just saw how my action was and told me the things I could work on and how my in-swing could be sharper.

From there, when we went into the IPL season, he told me things like, "A good ball is good regardless of who the batter is. It doesn't matter whether it's Virat [Kohli] or Rohit [Sharma] in front; if you bowl well, either they will get out or will face problems against you." He explained that very positively to me. It was great working with him.

Q. You also met your idol, Dale Steyn. What were the conversations like with him?

Shivam Mavi: It was my dream to meet Dale Steyn because I've been following him since I was a kid. It felt really, really good to meet him. I shared things with him, and talked about the [injury] issues, he said "It's OK, these things happen. You just need to focus on the things that'll help you move forward".

He also said, "Just keep bowling fast, you'll 100 percent play for India". He said a lot of things about the mental aspect as well so it was a really good learning experience.

Q. Your final goal would obviously be that India cap. Did you have a chat with the bowling coach or maybe Umesh Yadav about what you need to work on to make that dream come true?

Shivam Mavi: Yes, I did ask them about how I could play for India. Both Bharat sir and Umesh bhaiya said the same thing, "You have to be consistent for two to three years because selection is not in your hands, you can just perform regularly. If you keep doing that, then one day the selectors will take notice thinking. This guy has been performing well for two-three years, let's give him a chance for the country."

They just told me about the little things I need to focus on which will help me perform and bring me under consideration for Team India. That's what I am doing now.

Q. There's a lot of competition in fast bowling currently, with a lot of new players coming up every year. So how do you approach that? Do you just focus on your strengths and improve them further or do you try to learn from everyone and add new skills?

Shivam Mavi: I would just like to say one thing - yes, there are a lot of fast bowlers now, but if you keep your competition with others, you'll never be successful. Instead, if you're competing with yourself and can work on your strengths and add more to your bowling - that's how you become good.

In the end, it's all about performance. You can be the best bowler in the world, but if you are not performing, no one will consider you. If you are performing well, somewhere, someone will consider you for selection. That's what I'm trying to do.