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Self-belief was the key to victory

Captaincy always means more responsibility and that is something I have never shirked, writes Anil Kumble

When you walk onto the field after a win, you take more than just purpose with you. The confidence that comes with having won the last match at the same venue just a couple of days ago adds to your self-belief and that I believe was the key to our success against Kings XI Punjab on Friday.

We didn’t give up at any stage and that paid rich dividends in the end.

In any format, choosing the right playing XI is half the job done and I believe we did ours by deciding to field three spinners again.

As many as four games had been played on the same ground in a matter of two days and hence going in with three spinners even in a late evening match was the right thing to do.

Picking the players is one thing, them delivering quite another.

Here Appanna and his unlikely left-arm spin twin van der Merve didn’t let us down. I am amazed with the talent that Merve possesses.

His batting in the death overs after Yuvraj shocked us with his hat-trick was indeed a shot in the arm.

Merve stands a little above 6 feet, is massively built and he reiterated on Friday that power is an important ingredient to have in this format.

Merve’s good show

The young man wasn’t finished for the evening by any means, his lighting fast run out of Katich from point lifting the team’s spirits no end, what with Yuvraj continuing his destructive ways, this time with the bat.

And despite struggling with the dew on an outfield that made gripping so tough, Merve turned in a good show with the ball too.

In the end it boiled down to who will hold their nerve and I knew I just had to take the responsibility of bowling the penultimate over in order to keep the game and fight on till the final over. I was aware that Praveen had gone for a few in his earlier spell but that didn’t in any way deter me from asking him to bowl the last over. I see him as someone who has a heart for such situations and he didn’t fail me or the team.

Anyway these decisions always look good when they come off. After the exit of KP, I was asked to lead the side and I had no hesitation in accepting the offer.

Captaincy always means more responsibility and that is something I have never shirked. I see it as an honour and am pleased to add more to my plate.

We now move to Johannesburg with our confidence really high. We came to Durban desperate to pull off back-to-back wins and having done that our pursuit for a place in the final four is turning out to be more real.

Hawkeye Communications

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