Six weeks after IPL 2020, Chris Morris has been hailed as the change that Royal Challengers Bangalore needed. He sparkles with the new ball, clears the lower orders upon death, gives them a commanding presence on the field with his rocket arm, and brings with him the potential to be a spiker. To understand why it has been such a key part of the puzzle, let’s go back to December 2019.
It is the preparation for the mini auction in Calcutta. The Royal Challengers want Morris at any cost. In each of his simulated auctions, the price for him has skyrocketed. However, Mike Hesson, the cricket director, keeps going. It’s not out of desperation, but because of his innate belief in an X-factor player.
Forget having someone with the skills Morris has – over 140km / h, he can show up in death and catch the Yorkers, plus hit big early on. The Royal Challengers have struggled to have a consistent all-rounder in their setup. In 2016 and 2017, they had Shane Watson. Then in 2018 and 2019, they had Marcus Stoinis. Neither of them prospered, due to a variety of factors, including the cut-and-switch policy that they have since shelved for consistency. Kolkata Knight Riders has Andre Russell. The Indians of Mumbai have Kieron Pollard. Chennai Super Kings has Dwayne Bravo. There is a reason the Royal Challengers want it.
On the day of the auction, the Royal Challengers enter the auction at INR 1.7 crore and go all the way. They even discuss among themselves the possibility of making an upcoming offer after uploading the pallet to INR 10 crore. The Mumbai Indians retire, Hesson and Katich quietly celebrate. They have their man.
Fast forward to September 2020. The Royal Challengers have just finished their mandatory quarantine and are training at the ICC Academy in Dubai. Morris is among the last to hit, after an exciting first net session with the ball. When Morris rocks hard, he feels a tug in his stomach and immediately knows something is wrong. A precautionary scan reveals a tension in the stomach muscle. It’s just week one, and while the tournament is three weeks away, Morris isn’t a part of much of the preparation. But because he is such an integral member of the team, they are giving every opportunity to get back on the field.
Shipping it home after spending tons and tons of hours of time and energy on the mock auction, the actual auction, in numerous zoom sessions that Hesson and Katich conducted in preparation for the season, both in March and August, individually to ensure all your players are active. so mentally, it wasn’t even an option. It is this feeling of being loved that seals Morris’s bond with his new franchise, the fourth in the IPL after the Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals and Delhi Daredevils.
“Give me someone who doesn’t like the feeling of being loved, whether it’s in sports, in a relationship, or just in life in general,” Morris asks. “It’s nice to feel important. The medical staff was amazing. Being taken back to the park was really good. I’ve never had that kind of injury before. It was something new to me.”
The Royal Challengers Physiotherapist’s office in your hotel wing is open at 7am daily. Players zoom in and out of their sessions, and Morris is a regular. Six weeks of exercises, rehab, rest, where you don’t try to risk yourself to the point of taking a swing in the golf simulator, it’s worth it. Morris is in shape, and the Royal Challengers are preparing to take him to the competition in five games. It may seem all good now, in hindsight, that they expected it, but Morris himself was filled with apprehension as he raced against time to get in shape. .
“I didn’t know what to expect or how long it was going to take,” he says. “We worked really hard. It was a tough four and a half weeks for me and the medical team. We grafted in the gym, grafted on treatment tables. It was day after day. I had the machine in my room treating me all night. Literally, I would wake up every two hours and freeze all night. It was a tough graft and here we are. We are happy to play. As a medical team, everyone was happy that he can go back on the field and start playing. “
Morris immediately impressed on his first outing, against his former Super Kings team, by starting 3 of 19 of his four overs. Since then, he has put on one eye-opening performance after another. So far, it has nine wickets in six starts. More than 50% of his 120 submissions so far have been point balls. His power play economy is an outstanding 4.5, with his death economy set at 6.38.
His Smart Economy of 3.67 is second best for his teammate Washington Sundar. This component influences game economics, the phase of the game you pitched in, and the pressure on your team after throwing your overs. All this points to something that has been working for him lately. For Morris, this is not about the technical adjustments he has made. It is mental. And it revolves around the philosophy that the next ball is the most important ball you will throw.
“Ah, I think I’m in a blessed position, to be honest,” he says. “So there are high pressure points where you want to be as a cricketer. That’s where you want to test yourself as a cricketer. You can go fast bowling, bowling Yorkers and all six (laughs). I’ve been very lucky. I haven’t really been beaten (on IPL) yet, but that’s going to happen unfortunately. That’s the nature of the beast – the IPL.
“I just have to keep my clarity. The moment you lose the clarity of what you want to do, that’s when everything goes astray. The bouncing ability should be good. Like a new ball and a bowler of death, you are you’re going to take a hit for six, you’ll get inside edges for four. This is how to fix the next ball. If the next ball is hit by a six, just throw the next one, keep repeating, do your best. Gotta keep going improving. Like I said, I’ve been very lucky, I have wickets, they haven’t hit me for races. I hope it continues, if not for how you limit it. It’s a tough game, but I enjoy doing it. “
Morris agrees that all change in the thought process has been a long time coming. A forced breakout due to Covid-19 hampered their plans a bit. At 33, he has spent half his career, but Morris is not looking to make up for lost time. Having been injured at various points in his career, experience, he says, has taught him to see every opportunity as a blessing and how not to play with the fear of injury and with a clear thought process of what he wants to execute in each game. It helps you balance the good days with the bad.
“I have not received mixed messages,” he says. “It’s like ‘this is what I want to do’, ‘this is what I want to do’, and then you execute. If something goes wrong, you continue with Plan B, because we have a Plan B. Or, Plan C. What It has worked for me is a lot of clarity and what the execution should be. We do a lot of homework. Everything that happens behind the scenes, we work so hard that by the time we get to the game, we know what we want and then it’s up to us to execute our plans are very clear .
“Once you’re clear on what you need to do, it’s a lot easier for Virat (Kohli) to worry about field locations and stuff because most of us know what to do when we hit the top of our mark. Playing with Virat is very good. The most important thing for me is that he expects excellence, he expects you to put in the work because he puts in the work. Like I said, behind the scenes we are putting in all the work. We ‘are thinking about the game even before we go in in the game. So it’s been really good to play with him. He just exudes that energy that he wants to win all the time, like he just wants to get in the game. That’s his attribute for the team apart from performance. “
Putting clear plans, hard work and fitness aside, Morris is immersing himself in the experience of mentoring young Indian fast bowlers. In an age where ‘mentoring’ applies freely to every senior player, the Royal Challengers have gone the extra mile to ensure that senior members of their team spend time with their paired juniors. It doesn’t necessarily revolve around skill sets or fitness. They can also be life lessons, talks about what motivates them and what doesn’t. How is your life at home outside of cricket. By the way, these were the lessons Morris says he learned from “legend” Dale Steyn, whom he can now call a friend. Morris couldn’t have imagined, growing up in the diamond town of Kimberley, wanting to go bowling fast, that he might even have a conversation with Steyn. Today, she has shared a dressing room with him in South Africa and now in the Royal Challengers.
“Dale is a legend. The reason I’ve been lucky is because he’s not just a mentor, he’s actually one of my friends,” he says. “I pinch myself from time to time and say, Dale is my friend. We love spending time and doing things together. We are also very similar in our sports interests. We also have similar musical tastes. So we click really well and talk a lot of nonsense. together. I am very fortunate not only to have him in the locker room but also as my partner. His contributions have been very important and valuable. For me, the most important thing for me with Dale is not the things we talk about on the field, but more things we talk about off the field, in life in general. For a guy who’s been playing since he was 20 and is almost 47 now, I’m kidding. Being 38 and still doing what he does is amazing. The ones we talk about and the things he brings to the team are invaluable. “
And life in a bubble? Surely that would have been a challenge in the middle of a demanding tournament.
“It was different, at first I honestly thought it would be much worse, I would get bored and go crazy, but fortunately we have a good group of guys,” he says. “RCB management has been amazing putting together that team room. That has been amazing. We have a pool all to ourselves, we have a private beach. We had a barbecue [last week], all of us outside. The cricket on the big screen was amazing. We have a golf simulator, so we have everything we want. We’re lucky with the way RCB has pampered us players, and all the effort they’ve put into keeping us happy and comfortable has been incredible. So for us, the biobubble has been really cool, a lot of fun and hopefully if we can get through another week, hopefully we will, it will be quite enjoyable. “
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