Interview Yusuf Pathan: I backed my ability and knew we could win it if I stayed there till the end

Yusuf Pathan has been a different player in this IPL thus far, he hasn’t had many opportunities to bat, but whenever he has come out to the middle has looked in good touch and has batted with a more mature outlook. With a couple of good starts and not outs one could sense a big knock coming from the big man’s willow. It was on the night at Bangalore against the home team that he played an inning that characterizes him. Yusuf has always relied on his timing and strength to clear the ropes and he did exactly that against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.

He walked in when Gautam Gambhir got out after scoring 37 and KKR were 66/3 in 9 overs, they lost Manish Pandey in the next and he was joined by another hard hitter Andre Russell. The duo that came together at 69/4 in 10.1 overs turned things around with sheer brute force and when Russell finally got out the scoreboard read 165/5 in 17.3 overs and KKR needed another 21 runs to win from two and a half overs and in the end, they got over the line with 5 balls and 5 wickets in hand.

Yusuf a thunderous knock of 60 from 29 balls during which he clobbered 6 fours and 3 sixes, which is unlike a typical Yusuf Pathan knock as he is more of a six hitter than a boundary scorer. His 96-run stand with Russell came off just 44 balls in which his contribution was 45. It was this partnership that helped KKR chase down 185 on the first ball of the ultimate over. This from a point when they needed 117 runs from the last 60 balls and the asking rate was mounting with every delivery.

The Baroda batsman has been at his best while chasing as this was his 10th half century in the second inning and is third in the list of batsmen with most fifties while chasing and was the 15 occasion when he remained unbeaten.

Skipper Gautam Gambhir was also mighty pleased with their effort and called it one of his favorite Yusuf knocks, he said, “This is one of my favourite Yusuf innings. That one over from Watson where Yusuf cashed in set the game for us.”

Edited excerpts:

The Knight Riders dugout looked tense when Gambhir got out, what was the message that Yusuf carried while walking into bat? “When I was sitting in the dugout our coach Jacques Kallis told me to take my time and play my natural game, and if I am able to do that we can chase it down. Wasim Bhai (Wasim Akram) who was sitting behind me, also told me the wicket suits my style of play and if I get settled I will enjoy batting on this wicket. Piyush Chawla also walked up to me and said Yusuf Bhai this is your type of pitch, the ball will come on the bat and you can play your shots. The message from the dugout was just to go out there and express myself they all believed we could win if I got going no matter what the required rate was. That gave me a lot of confidence and I am happy I could play that knock and see the team through.” he said.

The middle order and lower middle order hasn’t really had opportunities to bat, but whenever they have come out, the task has been steep; the right-hander said they have been preparing for it in a similar manner and since their top order has been in great nick others know their role and are up for it. “Our openers have been batting really well Gautam (Gambhir) and Robin (Uthappa) have been giving us great starts. They have been working really hard in the nets and that has given other batsmen a chance to play their natural game. More often than not guys like Russell and myself will be required to bat only if our top order has got out early so we have been preparing ourselves for it and when the moment actually arrived last night we could pull it off.” Pathan added.

KKR players trained at a special camp in South Africa for a couple of weeks leading into the IPL and Yusuf feels that has really helped them hone their skills and improved their physical abilities. “Ahead of the IPL season, we had a training camp in South Africa with Andrew Leipus (KKR team physio) and Adrian Le Roux (KKR team physical trainer). We worked really hard on our body, we did strength training, worked out in the gym under their guidance, they also provided us specific diets. We played a few practice games against the local sides that had some quality bowlers and overall that has really helped us mentally and physically getting in shape and to be in a better position when we go out there and play on the field.”

We have seen him put in the dives on the boundary and take some sharp catches in the slips, did he put in the extra hours to improve his ground fielding and catching? Yusuf said, “I have worked hard on my fitness and fielding and it is working pretty well for me not only with my catching skills but also with my fielding and I feel lot more confident now to dive around and even while fielding in the slips, I am able to take the sharp catches.”

What was the talk in the middle between Yusuf and Russell while they were going about the chase? Did they go in with a particular plan or target a specific bowler or over to which he said, “I and Russell didn’t discuss many things our focus was just to back ourselves and our ability to play the big shots. We were not really concerned about the scoring rate; we knew if we could stay there till the end we had a really good chance of winning it.”

“Having somebody like Russell at the other end helps, you know that he can also play the big shots as well. And we both tried to give the strike to the one who had hit a four or a six in the over, we only took singles to rotate the strike otherwise we knew that we needed to get the boundaries to win the game.”

“We didn’t target a particular bowler as such, the plan was to keep attacking and we knew one big over would come and that was Shane Watson’s over, I got 24 runs from it. When I hit him for fours on the first three balls I knew this was the over because he had tried his best three balls and I was still able to hit him for a four each time, and it proved to be the over that made the chase easier for us thereafter.” He explained.

After Suryakumar Yadav hit the winning runs, Yusuf had a mid-pitch chat with RCB skipper Virat Kohli following which we saw both the players smile and hug each other. What did Virat tell him? “Virat congratulated me for the knock and said that I played well. I also took the opportunity to appreciate him, he has been playing some wonderful cricket for the last two years, and he has evolved as a mature batsman and a leader. It was just our way to praise each other after a good game.” Yusuf said.