Narine was our best bet to open batting and it worked
cabinet has more trophies for his batting acts than bowling. I couldn’t believe that. To verify it, I checked with Sunil himself. Normally a restrained individual, he sprang to life, adjusted his T-shirt collar, cleared his throat and his eyes widened before he confirmed: “Yeah skipper, there are more trophies for batting than bowling in the cabinet back home.”
On Thursday evening at Eden Gardens he won another Man-ofthe-Match award against Kings XI Punjab for an all-round show. But trust me he will tell you it was more for his batting than bowling. Well done Sunny, for scoring an 18-ball 37 besides bowling four overs for 19 runs and taking a wicket. Credit should also go to the entire support staff that was convinced about this call. After the injury to Chris Lynn, we wanted to try someone who could go hard at the opposition up front. Sunil seemed the best option as he has done this in the Big Bash league as well.
I am also proud of my teammate Robin Uthappa, who was a perfect team man. He is a regular opener in the team but he gladly gave way, first to Lynn and now to Sunil. I can tell you from experience that there are few batsmen who would let go of their batting position. Well done, Robin!
I am also proud of Umesh Yadav. He bowled a game-changing over, and importantly took out the dangerous Maxwell and Miller. We met at breakfast on Thursday morning. I asked him to come out of the Test match mode and think T20. His reply was extremely intelligent and insightful. Umesh said with conviction, it is better to be in Test match mode as you are then aiming to pick wickets. But if you are in T20 mode, then as a bowler you are only thinking to defend. He was spot on.
This is what experience of playing at the highest level can do. This is what confidence can do. After that, I decided not to discuss cricket and instead manoeuvred our chat to life in Nagpur versus life in Delhi.
Apart from some shoddy fielding, it was a perfect match. We surely need some good fielding and catching practice. I shudder to think what would have happened if we had dropped catches while defending a target. On a personal note, I had a reasonable hit in the middle and was glad I could finish the game off.
The team is upbeat. Our day was divided into training, batting, gym, et al. In the past years, Sunil had only one bat in his kit. I am happy to share that this year I have spotted three shining willows with Sunil’s favourite pink grips. Is he trying to give me a message?