During his maiden IPL season in UAE, young batting sensation from Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Devdutt Padikkal, had the chance to share the dressing room with two modern-day greats in skipper Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers.
Padikkal enjoyed building some invaluable partnerships on the field with Kohli and while he didn't bat as many times with De Villiers, the former South Africa skipper, he says, provided him constant support through the season.
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Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, the 20-year-old left-hander recalled how De Villiers used to motivate him and tell him to maintain the "zone" he was batting in.
"He’s (De Villiers is) a special player. Just watching him bat is a treat for your eyes. Throughout the season, he kept telling me to stay in the zone and continue to do what I was doing,” Padikkal said.
“I remember when we were travelling back from the Mumbai [Indians] game in which I got the 70 [74], he sent me a text message saying, ‘Continue to do that and you’re playing really well, just stay in the zone and enjoy yourself’."
"That was really special because, coming from him, it was a great honour. I really enjoyed batting with him whenever I could because he makes your job so easy. He just takes on the bowlers from ball one and I enjoyed watching him," he added.
Padikkal ended the tournament with an 'Emerging Player' award for the season after making 473 runs at an average of 31.53 and strike-rate of 124.80. Padikkal made 5 half-centuries from 15 innings in the season and was integral to RCB reaching the play-offs.
Before the IPL 2020, Padikkal had dominated his first domestic season at the state level for Karnataka as he became the leading run-scorer in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 and Vijay Hazare Trophy, apart from ending the Ranji Trophy as his state's highest run-maker.
The youngster says working on the mental side of his game, not just the technical aspects, has been key to his success.
"It was more [about] the mental side of the game, because after a certain point the physical aspect is in a set place. Then it’s more about how you handle the pressure and the situation," said Padikkal.
“So that’s what I was working on and whenever I got a chance, even in domestic tournaments, I wanted to make sure that I took responsibility and tried to take the team home even though there were some international cricketers in our Karnataka side."
"That’s something I really wanted to work on because I knew that when I came into the IPL, there will be big players around and I knew I’d want to be the one to take the responsibility," he added.
