'I like to get challenges' - RCB spinner Wanindu Hasaranga opens up on handling pressure situations in IPL

RCB spinner Wanindu Hasaranga has expressed his feelings on becoming the second highest wicket-taker in the IPL 2022. He said, “I am really happy that I am the second highest wicket taker in this tournament. RCB is one of the best franchises, the players are friendly. We work as one family all the time, the head coach, Sanjay Bangar and Mike Hesson and the entire staff support my bowling and me. They are all very experienced and it is very good for us. I played last year’s second half with Yuzi so we both are very good friends; I always appreciate his bowling and he also does the same thing.” Speaking about handling pressure situations, Hasaranga said, “I like to get challenges so that’s very easy to handle pressure situations for me”.

Mike Hesson went on praising Hasaranga’s performance and said, “From the start, Hasaranga was always getting big players out, he was getting wickets in the middle that got us back in the game, even though he might have got one for 28 which does not cause highlights. He was actually doing a nice job for us. It was very hard to replace one of our all-time greats and someone like Yuzi, he is an icon at RCB. Hasaranga comes in as his replacement, as the tournament’s gone they work out he is a good cricketer as is Yuzi.”

On Hasaranga’s brilliant performance and improvement, Sridharan Sriram, batting and spin bowling coach, RCB said,” I am a big believer in making technical interventions as the tournament goes on and even as you progress, a lot of coaches have a feeling that we should not intervene technically. But I believe that we should keep looking at the footage, constantly keep revisiting what has worked for you and if he is going away from it make little tweaks.

“What we have done with him is, that his run up has been very up and down so we just fixed his run up the speed at which he delivers is very much the same now. He used to run fast, slow there was a mixed up pattern to it but the way the speed at which is running, the angles from which he runs, from where he delivers the ball, we are trying to still experiment and keep getting him better so I think there are little tweaks here and there. At the end of the day, they are delivering the results,” he added.

Replacing Yuzvendra Chahal for RCB was not an easy task; Hasaranga comes in with incredible expectations. Everyone knows what Yuzi has done for RCB and to come and fill into his boots and be second on the list of highest wicket-taker now, full credit to him because the way he has handled the pressure on the expectation of the Indian public and the RCB fans. Some of the criticisms he had to face and how he has bounced back every time, is incredible proof of his sort of temperament,” he added.