Message to me was clear, I had to go after spinners
Delhi Daredevils' decision to go in with three spinners for their game against Mumbai Indians back-fired as Krunal Pandya, promoted up the order, came up with a whirlwind 86 off only 37 balls, that paved way for Mumbai Indians' 80-run victory at the YSR ACA-VDCA stadium in Visakhapatnam on Sunday (May 15). There seemed to be some purchase for the spinners early on, but Pandya negated that when he put on a 98-run stand off 50 deliveries for the second wicket with Martin Guptill (48 off 42), which helped Mumbai Indians post a massive total of 206 for four.
Pandya, whose maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) fifty kept Mumbai Indians' playoffs hopes alive, told the media in the post-match press-conference that the idea behind his promotion to No. 3 was to take on the spinners, which paid off for him as well as his team.
Message to me was clear, I had to go after spinners
"Definitely [very important]," Pandya said, of Guptill's presence during their stand. "When I went in at No. 3, the message was clear - I had to go (after) the spinners. There were two leg spinners and one left-arm spinner. So, in between Martin helped me a lot, (he) was guiding me. We discussed that, 'you stay back, play through the innings and I will take the charge.
"That was the plan. When I went inside and played a couple of balls, I said, 'Martin, I will go.' On that kind of wicket you need one batsman to play till 15-16 overs so you can lay the foundation for the other players. My job was clear that I have to go there and play my shots," he explained.
Despite the ball gripping and turning initially, Pandya was able to overcome that and such was his devastation that Imran Tahir ended up with figures of none for 59, the most expensive figures in IPL history for a spinner, while both Amit Mishra and Shahbaz Nadeem conceded 42 runs apiece.
Message to me was clear, I had to go after spinners
When asked about his modus operandi against the spinners, Pandya said: "The ball was gripping, it was not coming that easily on to the bat. When I went and saw... I picked my spot and I knew the ball was not coming on to the bat. The shots which I played off the spinners (were possible because) I was waiting for it and then trying to finish my shot rather than going on straight away."
Zaheer Khan, the Delhi Daredevils skipper, noted that Pandya's blistering innings and the left-right combination that Mumbai Indians had in the form of Pandya and Guptill, worked to Mumbai Indians' benefit.
"I think the left-right combination kind of helped them. When someone plays an innings like that, Pandya just put the pressure back on us. The important thing was the partnership in the middle. We were hoping that our spinners would put the brakes on. Our bowling unit right throughout the tournament has been fantastic, this kind of things happen, it was an off-day for the bowling unit. It's just about regrouping and going ahead, we still have three games to go," Zaheer said, when asked about the spinners going for plenty.
Being bowled out for only 126 in reply to Mumbai Indians' mammoth score meant that Delhi Daredevils slipped to the fifth position in the points table. Zaheer, who said his team would have been comfortable chasing something in the vicinity of 150, reckoned Daredevils will get back to the drawing board to chalk their way forward in their remaining three matches.
"(We were looking to) restrict them as early as possible. I felt 150-160 would have been good on this track (to chase). As I said, it's one of those things when we just couldn't get going as a unit. You can always go and scrutinise, look what happened, what could have been done and stuff like that. That's part and parcel of the game. It's important we focus on what we have been doing, how we're executing our plans. We will be having our debrief sessions and look at things which we could have done differently," the Daredevils skipper opined.
Message to me was clear, I had to go after spinners
No comments :
Post a Comment