Pune, April 6: Kolkata Knight Riders Captain Shreyas Iyer on Wednesday said it was surprisingly an extraordinary innings played by Pat Cummins who was not middling the ball and getting bowled in the nets yesterday.
“It was extraordinary! I couldn’t believe the way he (Cummins) was hitting the ball. Because yesterday in the nets, he was getting bowled now and then, I was batting in the nets beside him then,” he said at the post-match presentation ceremony here. Revealing the strategy to go for a win, Shreyas said the plan was for Venkatesh Iyer to drop anchor and ask Cummins to play his natural game of aggression, during the timeout.
“During the timeout, the plan was for Venky to drop anchor and tell Pat to just swing at everything because that’s what he was doing before too,” he said. “When I went into bat, I told him (Cummins) to just time the ball because he was overhitting the ball a bit. We have to take responsibility as top order batters. All of us have the ability to hit the ball long,” KKR skipper added. In the powerplay both innings, the pitch was quite the same, but later it got a lot easier, he guessed, Shreyas said.
Meanwhile, MI Captain Rohit Sharma said he never expected Cummins to come all guns blazing. “Lots of credit to him,” he said. The pitch got better to bat as the game went on, but was holding up initially, Rohit said. “Overall it was a good pitch,” he said. Rohit also said the batting did not start well, but getting 70 plus runs in the last 4-5 overs was a great effort from the batting unit. He said they did not bowl according to the plan. “The team had the game till the 15th over, but Cummins was brilliant,” Rohit said adding that they had KKR 5-down and it was a matter of picking up Venkatesh and Cummins’ wicket.
“Whenever you have runs on the board, we always have the upper hand, We had them 5-down, it was just a matter of the wicket of Venky or Pat, they had Sunil Narine who could smash them. This will be hard to digest, the way it turned out in the last few overs,” he said. On his innings, Cummins said, “I probably think I am most surprised by that innings. I am glad that it came off. I was thinking of having a swing if it was in my area. Wasn’t trying to overthink it.”
Very satisfying to do it in his first game this season, he said. “I was just trying to pepper the shorter boundary. The hard thing after a big auction is that there are a lot of changes from last year. It is a good mix of talent out there and quite relaxed with the boys,” Cummins said. UNI
