Every April, young cricketers from small towns across India enter the world of IPL — five-star hotels, foreign coaches, franchise millions, parties they would have never imagined. This series tells their stories, in their words, of what that crossing feels like.
Last year, when Taruwar Kohli started a YouTube channel, he didn’t think twice about the name. Find A Way. “That’s what Warne would say in the dressing room or the team meetings whenever the team or any player faced a tough phase. Find a way.”
Kohli was nineteen when he joined Rajasthan Royals in 2008. He’d just scored three consecutive half-centuries in the U-19 World Cup. Ten days after India won that tournament, he and Ravindra Jadeja were drafted into Royals. “As a kid, I would often imitate Shane Warne’s action in the nets and in front of my parents. So when I was picked up by Rajasthan Royals, I had a conversation with Jadeja about getting a chance to play along with a legend like Warne. We had always seen him as a world-class spinner but not as a captain. We did not know how Shane Warne would turn up as a captain.”
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The first match was against Delhi Daredevils in Delhi. Warne had a plan. He told Kohli not to be shy with his inside-out shot over extra cover against McGrath. “Mate, you’re playing because you can run at him first ball and take him down. Set the tone and let everyone know the Royals are here.”
Shane Warne had instructed Taruwar Kohli not to be afraid of attacking Glenn McGrath. Kohli would charge at Australian pacer with success. (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)
After the toss, Warne had a smoke and sat down to watch. Then he saw that Yusuf Pathan was on strike. Wrong way around. He sent a message out and they switched last minute.
Kohli remembers facing McGrath at a packed Kotla. “When I took guard for the first time — packed stadium, full capacity — and Glenn McGrath was running in to bowl. The first ball swung late and beat me. That carried on for three or four balls.” The occasion got the better of him.
Then he stepped out and hit McGrath over cover for six. “That is a special memory from my short IPL career,” Kohli says. He fell to the third ball of McGrath’s next over. Royals were hammered by nine wickets.
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In the dressing room after the loss, Watson was crying in the corner. “I am so much better than this,” he said. Warne fired back: “Well, bloody well show me then!”
Then silence. Warne addressed the room. Kohli remembers it one way: “He just told us that he did not like to do team meetings. He was straightforward that we should not expect him to give a lecture after a loss. He wanted to party later and his only advice was to portray whatever role you’ve been given with full commitment.”
Warne remembers it another way in his autobiography No Spin: “Boys, are we okay? Listen, we lost a game of cricket, it’s not the end of the world. We are better than we were today, much better, and we’ll prove it. The bus leaves in 20 minutes, be on it.”
The same night. The captain’s version and the kid’s version. Both true.
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Shane Warne’s rallying cry — find a way — to motivate the Rajasthan Royals players, would become the name of Taruwar’s YouTube channel. (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)
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Warne captained and coached for forty-four days that season. No ego. No lectures. Just instinct and a phrase that kept returning.
“He never bowled any of his bowlers for straight three overs. He understood things like Sidharth Dwivedi being a better bowler with the semi-new ball. I believe if Warne was around today, he would have mastered the present era of teams analysing each player and having match-ups for every over. Warne did that in 2008.”
When the team needed 17 off the last over against Deccan Chargers, with Andrew Symonds bowling, Warne walked out and scored 16 off five balls. The captain who said find a way, finding it himself.
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Two moments from Warne stay with Kohli beyond the cricket.
In a league match against Chennai Super Kings in Jaipur, Dhoni walked in to bat. The wicket wasn’t turning. Warne set a fielder at silly point. “He was there to take on Dhoni. It was not a turning wicket but he wanted to show he was not intimidated. That was something he was very brilliant at.”
The other moment was in the semi-final against Daredevils. Kohli was the 12th man. He took a catch — Gautam Gambhir off Shane Watson’s bowling. “Post the win, Warne and the coaches would share how I carried the flag that day.” The flag. That was the team’s theme all season — who will carry the Royals’ flag to the title. A 12th man’s catch counted the same as a fifty.
Taruwar Kohli took a game-changing catch in the semifinal. Shane Warne acknowledged his effort in the dressing room. (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)
Royals won the final against Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings off the last ball. Yusuf Pathan took three wickets and scored 56. Kohli watched most of it from the dugout.
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And he watched the careers diverge. “When Virat and Jaddu got called up for India, I thought — Yaar we should be playing too. We were in the same patch.” They were, once. The U-19 World Cup, the same dressing room, the same draft. Then the paths split and kept splitting.
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He watched other things too. Sachin Tendulkar cleaning his own bat, his own pads — everything himself. “That taught me that whatever you do, you have to take care of it yourself.”
His advice to the next generation is practical. “You have to have a Plan B. Because life is not fair — I have learned this going outside. The ones who have no backup plan are under the most stress, and that stress means they cannot play their cricket freely either.”
And when things get complicated, he goes back to Warne. “Warne always used to say that when you cannot understand things, there is only one way. To attack. Whether it’s bowling or batting. How to take the wicket or how to hit the bowler for runs. Whatever ability one has, one should aim to give his full potential even more and that’s what my mantra is in business.”
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Eighteen years later, Kohli is thirty-seven. He runs a brand called Versant Sports — batting gloves designed with Shubman Gill. “Whenever one is in doubt or faces a dilemma or is simply starting a new thing — Find A Way. That’s what Warne told me and every member of that Royals team. That’s what gives one strength and belief.”
