Kolkata : “You could see what kind of mood I was in. I just wanted to go out there and hit everything out of the park,” beamed Yusuf Pathan looking fresh after a stroke-filled 18-ball 37 that had helped his side cruise to an 8-wicket victory against the Rising Pune Supergiants on Saturday.
He had hardly broken a sweat; he had batted for just close to 20 minutes and that was enough to master a tricky run-chase single-handedly. Kolkata Knight Riders needed to chase 66 in nine overs and Yusuf did it for his side in just five. “There was no other gear in my batting; it was all about starting from fifth gear right from the beginning,” he said.
“Ashwin bowled really well to get two wickets in his first over. He was getting a lot of spin off the wicket,” Yusuf begins talking to a correspondent of the official website of IPL about his mode of play to counter Ashwin. “When a bowler is getting that kind of spin, as a batsman you have two thought processes going on. One is to either play him out and the other is to attack him right from the beginning. My target was to always attack so that he got into the defensive. In that way I could easily play my natural game and it clicked for me.”
“I wanted to hit him for a six in the very first ball. I wanted to put him under pressure early on in the over so that it would boost my confidence. And, when I was in that kind of confidence I didn’t want to take a single and give the confidence away. I wanted to churn out as many runs as possible from that particular over since I had the upper hand early on. The ball was coming nicely on to the bat and I thought, “Why should I take a single when I can hit the deliveries for sixes. Why should I wait for any other over when I can seal the deal in this one?”
A game-changing over for sure, but it did require the mayhem of one batsman from that KKR dugout to do the job for the team. “I was just walking out of the dressing room when I saw wickets were falling. I didn’t get time to sit in the dugout. I walked off straight from the dressing room to the ground. The message is in the head and that is to continue playing my natural game. The dressing room is well aware of my shots and my abilities and they never feel the need to tell me how to play my game.”
