IPL 2019: Stop looking for the next Holding or Lara after every good series win - Carlos Brathwaite

“I get asked a lot (by young players in teams he plays for) about the four sixes but I have done other things in cricket and I have other skill sets as well,” said Carlos Brathwaite, who will represent Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season.

Ben Stokes may not see it that way but Carlos Brathwaite does have a smile that lights up a room. The four sixes Brathwaite smoked off Stokes in the 2016 World T20 final is a part of cricket history that he carries with him, and even without asking, it found a way into our conversation on Friday.

File image of Carlos Brathwaite. (PTI)

“I get asked a lot (by young players in teams he plays for) about the four sixes but I have done other things in cricket and I have other skill sets as well,” said Brathwaite, 30, who will represent Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this season.

Since that night, Brathwaite has been made captain of the West Indies’ T20 side and is an important member of their 50-over team, so it fit that he would talk about what success in the recent series against England means to cricket in the Caribbean. But more of that later. First up was how he could help Dinesh Karthik, the KKR skipper.

“As a captain, I have always thought it is not a dictatorship and you want 10 other captains. I try to be one of those captains without being disrespectful to the leader. Being an international captain, it is my duty to help him; you know, it may be an angle, a suggestion about the field, a bowling change or may even be me walking to a bowler and saying just take some time and slow down the game. I know how stressful it is in a T20 game, so the onus is on me to take some pressure off DK,” said Brathwaite.

One of the things KKR need to ponder on is whether Brathwaite and Russell can be accommodated into the playing 11. Speaking at a sponsor’s event before this interview, assistant-coach Simon Katich didn’t rule it out. Brathwaite agreed.

“Over a long season, you are faced with injuries, sickness, you are also faced with different conditions, and you play against different teams and start to see trends at the back-end of the tournament. Based on those trends, you can select your four overseas (players). So who knows, I may be needed with Rus,” said Brathwaite.

He has also worked on death bowling over the past year and that could give KKR an option should they want to use the all-rounders together. “My death bowling, I think, has come a long way. Batting-wise, probably Russell would go ahead of me, having a couple of T20 hundreds. But it would also give him a little buffer knowing that he doesn’t have to be there till the last ball. Hopefully, that allows him to get 60-odd if not a hundred or two! But I think this is a good position for us to be in: to be used as a replacement for Russell or an enhancement with Russell,” he said, breaking into that disarming smile.

The smile stayed when he was asked whether Chris Gayle should reconsider his international retirement after the World Cup - “If it were up to me, I would like to see him in the park and in my team longer but he will know the time to stop. Until then let his sixes rain” - but left him when quizzed on the impact of winning the Wisden Trophy and finishing the one-day series against England 2-2.

“Can’t say if this is another false dawn. What you have to see is whether we are progressing. Every time we have won a good series, we immediately think of who is the next Michael Holding or the next Brian Lara and I think that is wrong. If you have a good series try and replicate what good you did. So, I don’t want to say whether we have turned the corner. Instead, I celebrate what we achieved, appreciate the effort to topple England in the Tests and to draw with the No 1 ODI team.”

Crucial to that stirring performance was Jason Holder’s captaincy. Brathwaite said everyone has blown up the captaincy bit following his recent success but Holder was doing well even before England visited. Holder’s form is something Brathwaite said he would like to emulate. “If I get my performance consistently to the level that he has had, I would go some way in replicating the kind of impact that he has had on the Test and ODI teams.”

Like Usain Bolt and former umpire Steve Bucknor, Brathwaite is a Manchester United fan. “There is only one team in Manchester,” he deadpanned at the promotional event. “It is probably the only thing I use Twitter for,” he said. Brathwaite said he has watched a couple of games at Old Trafford but hasn’t met the players. “I am a big fan of (Paul) Pogba and would like to meet him.”

That wish could come true if West Indies go deep into the World Cup.