Always wanted to win matches and tournaments: Shreyas Gopal reflects on First-Class career

CHENNAI: Thirteen years since he first walked onto the field in a First-Class match, Shreyas Gopal marked a special milestone on Sunday during the Duleep Trophy final. The leg-spinner from Karnataka, like Mohammed Shami, is playing his 100th First-Class appearance as he rolled his arm and toiled all day for South Zone during the summit clash against East Zone at the MA Chidambaram Stadium.

Though the day was not kind on South Zone bowlers, including Gopal, the 33-year-old has nothing but gratitude for the journey he has had up until this point. "Everyone dreams of playing for the country, playing 100 First-Class games. It's a very special achievement and I'm very grateful for this opportunity. But if you ask me 12-13 years back, would I have thought of it? No," Gopal smiles after the day's play as East finished with 385/4 on Day 1.

For any Indian cricketer, especially a bowler, a decade of toil in the domestic circuit will carry a lot of ups and downs. Gopal's journey has not been any different. For someone, who started out as a batter before taking up bowling as a primary skill in his late teens, Gopal has 305 wickets as of Sunday at 28.25 in First-Class cricket. Through this time, he has seen two Ranji triumphs and an Irani trophy win with Karnataka. Even last year, after coming back to the state side following a season away, Gopal played an integral part in Karnataka reaching the final. In ten matches, he took 48 wickets at 23.14 average, finishing third on the leading wicket-takers list.

Ask him what has changed in the last 18 months, the reply was instant. "I'm glad that I could come back to my state. It's been good, the last 12-24 months or maybe more has been good with both bat and ball. I put in a lot of work, to be honest, especially on bowling. I was told that there are not too many leg spinners who have played upwards of 50 games. I think Karn Sharma has that thing. I wanted to make a point that I wanted to show that leg spinners can play red-ball cricket and still be successful. I put a lot of work into my bowling," Gopal elaborated. "Batting was a little more gifted for me in the sense that I grew up as a batter. I had that natural ability of batting. Bowling took a lot of work. I did bowl a lot of weeks, months and years just tactically trying to get a little better. Using the crease, understanding what situation it is and when to attack, when to defend. Most times it would come off. Sometimes, like today, it was not going to come off. But as long as you go in with a plan, as long as you try and achieve something with a plan and with a goal, it actually gives you a sense of direction. If you just go there without a plan, most times you are not going to be aware of what's going to hit you," he added.

As far as memorable moments go, he recalled the Ranji and Irani victories with Karnataka. Gopal said that he was thinking of the hat-trick he took in 2013-14 Irani Trophy, dismissing B Aparajith, Ashok Dinda and Pankaj Singh, when he walked onto the field on Sunday during his 100th First-Class match. "In terms of red-ball, the two Ranji Trophies that we won with the Irani Trophy, unfortunately, we missed out last year. But I think we have had some great moments and we have won a lot of tournaments when you combine white and red-ball. The Irani Trophy, when I got my hat-trick in my first year, that was the first thing that came into my mind when I was walking in today. That was my first year I had a hat-trick and time just flew by. It's been a few years already and I'm playing 100 games. So many moments, even with the bat and some of the games that you save when Karnataka was not in the best spot. And then you come in and you really try and save the match or try and win it from there and things like that. There's so many moments, but very small ones. But when it's a collective thing, it makes a massive memory," recalled Gopal.

"I think it's very important to stay neutral, not get too carried away with success, on a day like this, not feel too terrible about it. I think there was a person who quite sometime told me it's harder to handle success than failure. When you're successful, you get carried away a lot easier. When you don't get that success, you want to do so much better, so you try and work a lot harder. But it's very important that you work as hard as when you're successful and when things are falling. That keeps you very neutral. You try to ride the highs and lows. You don't get too carried away. I think that's a very important thing. You need to be hungry for wickets and runs. For victories, I've always wanted to win tournaments and win matches. I was very hungry for victories, so that's how I played," he signed off, hoping for a better day on Monday.