At 33, featuring in his 100th first-class match, Gopal is now mature enough to take such days in his stride and not beat himself up too much.
“I think it’s very important to stay neutral, not get too carried away with success, [and] on a day like this, not feel too terrible about it,” Gopal said after stumps on the first day. “Yes, you will feel bad about it, but you need to try and bounce your way through it. I think there was a person who quite some time [ago] told me it’s harder to handle success than failure. When you’re successful, you kind of get a little carried away a lot easier.
“When you don’t get that success, you kind of want to do so much better, so you try and work a lot harder. You need to be neutral and try to ride the highs and lows. You need to be hungry for runs, wickets and victories. That’s how I have played.”
Gopal was top-order batter in age-group cricket, but as he moved up the ranks, batting took a back seat. He has now refashioned himself into one of the most reliable all-format legspinners who can also contribute with the bat in the lower order in Indian domestic cricket. He never expected to come this far and toasted his journey to 100 first-class games.
“Definitely not, but everyone dreams of playing for the country and playing 100 first-class games,” Gopal said. “It’s a very special achievement and I’m very grateful for this opportunity. But if you ask me 12-13 years back, would you have thought of it? No, at that time the dream was to still play Ranji Trophy and seal my spot over there. I’m very happy about it [the journey] now.”
“I was told that there are not too many legspinners who have played a bunch of 30-40-50 games,” Gopal said. “I wanted to make a point that I wanted to show that legspinners can play red-ball cricket and still be successful. I put a lot of work in my bowling. [Like] Using the crease, understanding what situation it is and when to attack and when to defend.
“The switch between T20 or white-ball cricket and red-ball cricket is a more mental switch. Because you’ve been bowling for so many years, so the line length and things are one thing. When you come to red-ball cricket, you have to be okay to be bowling 20-25 overs in a day. And it’s definitely not easy being a legspinner to be bowling 25 overs. It’s going to take a lot out of your body and then come out in the middle order and try and make some runs.”
Shreyas Gopal: ‘Time with Dhoni at CSK gold for me’
Gopal was picked by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at the auction ahead of IPL 2025 and though he has warmed the bench for two seasons, he feels that inputs from MS Dhoni have helped him evolve as a player, including as a captain, and deal with pressure better.
“I’m very grateful for my experience with CSK here [in Chennai],” Gopal said. “I led [Mangalore] in the Maharaja Trophy last year. “The time that I spent with Mahi bhai was gold actually for me. I took so much from those learnings. If not everything, I took almost 90-100% of those learnings and I just transferred it into the Maharaja league over there.
“And most of it is just tactical and just the way he keeps the environment [calm], the way he speaks to the younger boys, to the way he handles situations, the way he captains, the way he’s trying to read the game. There’s so many questions I’ve asked him over these last two years and I just tried to take the whole thing over there.”
When he was in charge of Mangaluru Dragons, Gopal also had an opportunity to connect with R Ashwin, who captained Dindigul Dragons, Mangaluru’s parent franchise in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL), at the time.
“During that time, we had a camp before the Maharaja Trophy. We had a camp in Dindigul and Ash anna was there,” Gopal recalled. We did catch up and we did speak. But during the tournament, I think he gave us complete freedom and he was constantly giving his thoughts to the support staff and they were giving it to me.
“I was getting inputs and feedback from there, but no, he never interfered. So I think that he understood that as a senior and as a legend that you give them that space and it worked out very well for us.”
Deivarayan Muthu is a senior sub-editor at Cricinfo
