I want to continue good form for the whole season, says Nitish Rana

After impressing everyone in his first season with Mumbai Indians in 2017, Nitish Rana had a mediocre outing in the 2018 edition. The youngster from Delhi is keen to work on some of the mistakes he has done in the past to become a better and effective player. Rana started off with a bang in the 2019 edition and currently holds the Orange Cap after two fifties against the SRH and KXIP.

After the match, Rana confessed that his form has been “fizzling” out as the season progresses and that is something he would want to rectify. He also talked at length about the KKR Academy in Mumbai, where he worked alongside Abhishek Nayar. He said that the academy helped him become a mentally tough individual.

“I haven’t thought too far ahead. But for the last couple of seasons, I start well but my form fizzles out towards the latter half of the tournament. So this time around, I want to work on this. I want to continue the kind of form I have started in till the end of the tournament.

“I did not work on batting as such but I worked on the mental toughness. KKR academy was quite helpful in that sense because I got one-on-one time with Abhishek bhaiya and DK bhaiya. They helped me clear self-doubts. Now, I feel, I’ve become a better player,” said Rana on Wednesday after the match.

The plan was to attack Ashwin and Viljoen

The 25-year-old also made it clear that the plan was to attack Ravichandran Ashwin and IPL debutant Hardus Viljoen. He said that he wanted to build the innings ball by ball and it doesn’t matter who exactly was bowling to him. Nitish Rana also confessed that Andre Russell getting a lifeline was a huge bonus, which helped them muster 20-25 runs extra.

“I was just trying to build my innings. I was taking it ball by ball at the start and then when I thought I could charge, I did that. It doesn’t matter for me who the bowler is. My game plan was simple. I thought that was the time to attack and I did. That was the plan for the two overs — of Ashwin and South African pacer (Hardus Viljoen).

“Having 218/4 definitely worked in our favour, how Russell got a lifeline and that probably gave us those 20-25 runs extra. But even if we had 180 or 200, we would have fought this hard. It wasn’t very easy (to chase) because the ball started seaming in the second innings,” Rana further added.

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