Our gambles worked well against Rajasthan Royals, says Kieron Pollard

Mumbai Indians all-rounder Kieron Pollard has said that his team’s gambles worked pretty well against Rajasthan Royals in an important IPL match on Wednesday. Making a couple of unexpected moves, the Mumbai Indians surprised the Royals, when they were in
a commanding position.

Batting first, the Indians piled up a massive total of 197 runs, thanks to Pollard’s aggressive knock of 64 runs. Harbhajan Singh’s move to promote Pollard up in the batting order paid off, as the West Indian performed magnificently with the bat.

In reply, the Rajasthan Royals were in good position after losing a couple of early wickets. Ajinkya Rahane and Owais Shah respectively added 40 and 76 runs to steer their side to comfort zone.

The Royals were inching towards a terrific run chase, when Harbhajan made a smart move to bring his pace spearhead, Lasith Malings, back into the attack.

The Sri Lankan seamer picked up a couple of crucial wickets to create a big hole in Rajasthan’s ship. Consequently, the visitors collapsed on 170, facing an embarrassing 27-run defeat.

On his team’s strategy, “We took a gamble in bringing back Malinga [in the 15th over] to get a wicket as Owais Shah was batting pretty well. So we took the gamble and it worked for us. Some days it would work, some day’s it wouldn’t. This is T20 cricket.
It just takes one chance and one over to change the game," he said after the game.

When asked about his promotion in the batting order, he shared, "I batted at five today. [In the] first game I didn’t bat; [in the] second game I batted at 7. Some days it would come off, some days it wouldn’t. Today it was a good day and it came off. I
just play my game and know exactly what to do.”

“I am coming off a series against Australia [T20 and ODI]. It’s just a matter of continuing [what I did], adapting to the  conditions here in India, continue what I was doing. I would take it from there, game by game and situation by situation [batting higher
up]."

Alongside his wonderful batting effort, Pollard grabbed four wickets to scoop ‘Player of the Match’ award.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Apr 12 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry