FACING UP

MO BOBAT

The 42-year-old from Leicester is Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s director of cricket, overseeing their long-awaited first IPL title in only his second season. He will also join London Spirit in October

Interview by James Coyne

How did a former teacher and club cricketer end up where you are now?

I’ve got my dad to thank for me loving cricket. My parents were born in Africa, but my grandparents are from India originally, so cricket has been a strong thread in our family for generations. Like so many working in cricket I’m a failed professional sportsman. I was able to stay in the game by studying sport science. Coaching was a real passion of mine and I went into that, first at under-19 and under-17 level. I owe a lot to the people who employed me for my first ECB role [in 2011], Simon Timson and David Graveney. Simon is now performance director at Man City. I think he saw something in me. I set up the ECB Player Identification Department, which was a big part of Andrew Strauss’s strategy. I’ve not been too sensitive about being surrounded by people who have played cricket at the highest level. Whatever my role, I’ve tried to be innovative and add value from my own strengths.

‘I liken the IPL to being in semi-final mode at T20 World Cups, 10 weeks in a row’

It’s often said that ex-teachers make the best coaches…

There’s a lot of crossover, the most obvious thing is managing a group of people, often young people, sometimes complex and difficult characters. My teaching has helped me in terms of public speaking, too.

Royal Challengers Bengaluru lost six consecutive games early on in your first IPL campaign. Yet within 13 months you were celebrating the IPL title. What a turnaround…

I do always start with that first season. That 2024 campaign was a really important foundation. We won one out of eight, and in that period myself, Andy Flower, Faf du Plessis as captain, Virat Kohli and Dinesh Karthik, tried to exhaust everything possible to turn our fortunes around. Both me and Andy are pretty honest guys and will look to internally reflect first, rather than blame misfortune. The team managed to get six wins in a row to qualify. I said to the people around me that it was a good challenge, but it also gave me clarity about what to do in the year ahead. All the things you need clarity on, you’re forced to do when you’re not doing particularly well! I benefited from three years as a consultant for RCB with input on scouting and around the auction. Even so 2024 was still a pretty steep learning curve once you see the standard of the competition. I liken the IPL to being in semi-final mode at T20 World Cups, 10 weeks in a row. You’re playing with and against the best every game, a packed crowd, intense atmosphere, every result is crucial, and one player can take the game away from you. With England I saw that you don’t always get that in a World Cup group stage, but you do tend to in the knockouts. We were well-positioned at the startline in 2025, but you have to react to everything that comes along. Whether it’s an injury to a key player, or the India-Pakistan conflict causing a delay and then rescheduling… after that our remaining home games were moved to a different venue. We travelled more than any other team during the 2025 IPL, and twice as much as some. That’s where you come back to leadership and environment – trying to give yourself the right bandwidth to deal with decisions in the moment.