The young India hopeful has had a timely upsurge with his game. But needs to continue making it count.
Before they almost intentionally transformed into a Moneyball side, Rajasthan Royals (RR) used to be the most anti-IPL franchise. Despite an inaugural season title, the Royals were the unseen lot of the tournament.
They would rarely carry the limelight, fans would rave over them when they happened to see them but wouldn’t look forward to their matches. That was the phase when they would get into the dogfight, play a brand of cricket you respected and admired, unearth talents that only they would notice and give other teams their toughest battles at the fortress that was the Sawai Mansingh.
At the twilight of this phase, inspired by a mighty encouraging allround performance at the 2014 U-19 World Cup in UAE, the Royals roped in a player of their type.
Deepak Hooda gelled ever so seamlessly into the Royals set-up, being one of the players that others overlooked in preference of stars but the inaugural champions valued for the gumption and the utility he brought to the table.
At Royals, Hooda was asked to play the strenous powerhitting duties towards the end-overs, which meant the opportunity to make an impact was as brief as the chance to shine and announce himself to the world. Hooda could collect only 151 runs over 14 innings. But he had a strike-rate touching 160.
Hooda played strokes that drew you to your television sets. The quality he brought to each of his fours and sixes reflected immense promise and potential. It happens very rarely, but that was an ‘India talent’ at 20, waiting to be unleashed on the world stage.
Fast-forward life to 2021 and Hooda was still stuck somewhere in 2015. He had the talent, the raw skill but his numbers told story of a failure, not the tale of a successful player.
After 80 matches in the IPL, he was averaging 16.70 with a strike-rate shy of 130, making only three scores of fifty and more. Domestically, too, the player was hovering around the circuit without really kicking on and pressing for the higher honours.
There was something amiss. He had the game, the shots, the range but no string of performances to back his case. Maybe it was the comfort of his environment, finding IPL gigs regardless of the numbers on the scorecard and being a regular for Baroda.
One would never wish for things to go downslide between two cricketers at a personal level, but maybe the feud with Krunal Pandya and therefore the move to Rajasthan almost woke Hooda up from a sleep and fired up the player he has always had inside him. Vengeance is dangerous to be driven by but it has the power to change things around you. Things changed positively for Hooda.
It was just another low-key group encounter of the Vijay Hazare Trophy last winter but Deepak Hooda could well look back at it as the turning point. With Rajasthan reeling at 5 for 19 in a hopeless quest to take the fight back to Karnataka, Hooda took things under control and delivered possibly the finest List A hundred of the season, scoring 109 out of a team total of 199.
It was an innings so good the selectors overlooked indifferent outings in the rest of Rajasthan’s campaign and gave Hooda, also a capable sixth-bowling option, the nod for the ODI series against the West Indies at home. He also dominated his way to 294 runs in six innings of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, maintaining an eye-catching strike-rate of 168 while averaging 73.50 with 4 fifties under his belt.
Given India’s batting riches and paucity of the same in the opposition camp, Hooda’s opportunities against the West Indies were rare. But being part of the set-up at the highest level, donning the Indian jersey, almost rejuvenated the cricketer inside him.
What followed was a life-changing IPL bid from Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) ahead of IPL 2022. The Super Giants, guided by a tough, gritty character in Gautam Gambhir from the sidelines, did something different in the way they handled Hooda than the franchises he had previously turned up for.
They asked him to bat higher up the order, respecting the batting talent he has had in him and never pigeonholing him as an end-overs specialist. To get the best out of a player, you have to respect the talent he has in him and be patient. The Super Giants were prepared to respect and wait.
For Hooda, that was all he needed. It paved for a season of unprecedented IPL success for the right-hander, who amassed 451 runs from 15 innings, carrying a strike-rate of 136.66 while averaging a healthy 32.21. If that feels underwhelming, take context: never before had Hooda collected 200 runs in an IPL season.
More than the numbers, it was the manner in which he batted that made Hooda stand apart. He drove the ball beautifully, punched it with a level of authority that was refreshing for a player who had previously evoked frenzy and thrill in the end-overs but not the solidity and the dependability of someone capable of shaping up innings.
That was the season unlike any other season for our man. Hooda made more half-centuries in his 15 innings for LSG than he had done in 80 IPL matches before. This was the Deepak Hooda 2.0, finally doing justice to the potential he always carried and not just meandering around, sparkling from time to time without ever unleashing the fire inside him.
Poor fellow Irishmen faced the wrath for it a month later in Dublin. Buoyed by a nod at the top of the order in absence of multiple Test regulars, he absolutely crushed their attack with a knock that may have proven too good for better opposition bowling units. His hundred was only the fourth occasion of an Indian male scaling the milestone in T20Is. Beyond the runs, it was the way he drove, punched and pulled the ball that stood out.
The quality on display in that knock left a bitter-sweet feeling, for it may have been a moment of vindication for Hooda but was also a sad reminder of what he hadn’t been achieving with his game before.
You wonder if that will change now?
The mind wishes for the best, prepares for the worst. But somewhere, the heart continues to seek.
Are we going to finally see Deepak Hooda bat like Deepak Hooda can? Or would this prove to be a false dawn? In time lies the answer.
Ultimately, in any walk of life, it is not our ability that defines who we are, it is what we make of it.
