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Our run-chases are not for the faint-hearted

It was the desire to win a cricket match, no matter what, that saw us through, writes Anil Kumble

Our run chases must, from hereon, come with a warning they are not for the faint-hearted. And just like most heart attacks, are self-induced, thanks to bad habits, it is we alone who have made the chases tough for ourselves.

All credit to Ross Taylor here who saw us through two extremely tough games. To my mind the innings he played against Kolkata was the best I have seen in this format.

In both games, it was the desire to win a cricket match, no matter what, that saw us through. In team meetings, everyone has been talking about the points table, where we were placed, where our closest competitors for a semifinal spot were and so on.

After being patient with it for a while, I stepped in and told everyone to simply forget about the points table. We cannot control other teams and their results and so there’s no point in wasting time with the table.

Enjoy ourselves

Instead we decided to go out and there and enjoy ourselves. And once we started doing that, there was no panic in the ranks, be it when the opposition batsmen were coming hard at us or when the asking rate was growing and growing.

We did falter against Mumbai on a good batting track. We lost too many wickets early on and just couldn’t recover. The bowlers did their job to restrict Mumbai but we couldn’t complete it.

As far as the game against Kolkata goes, we knew they had to come strong at some point. McCullum really got going and left us with some batting to do.

Learning our lessons

But, showing that we had learnt our lessons after Mumbai, we kept our wickets intact. And then Ross took over. Scoring 80-odd with a strike rate of over 200 is simply amazing.

Here, we must not forget the efforts of Vinay Kumar with the ball. He used the new ball extremely well, both against Mumbai and Kolkata and forced Hayden to take more than his normal share of risks as a result.

I was talking to some of our opponents and they too seemed to have been left impressed by Vinay’s showing.

Talking about Hayden, his imposing presence was the reason I opened the bowling on Thursday. Haydos and Raina have scored nearly 800 runs between them in the tournament and we reasoned that it was worth a gamble trying to get Haydos to take a chance against spin first up. I thought about a second over too but you only have four overs at your disposal in this format and you have to mix it up.

In fact frequent bowling changes are a must as like in any other format, the batsman will take a couple of balls to study the new bowler and in T20 those two quiet balls too help.

Outstanding fielding

It wasn’t just the bowling that kept Chennai under control.

Our catching and fielding were outstanding and I once again reiterate it to our resolve to relax on the field. Once we had them down to under 130, the chase was always on. We were set back with the early losses of Kallis and Rahul, the two men who could have anchored the chase but then Ross and Virat came up with the steadying partnership.

Also we knew we batted deep and as long as the run-rate was around run-a-ball, we would get through.

Now it is a question of getting through to the semis but rather than focus on that, we will concentrate on winning the next game before thinking of the final one of the league phase or anything after that.

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