Back home, Royal Challengers Bangalore is hoping to return to winning ways, starting with Sunday’s game against the Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.
A warm Thursday here turned overcast in the evening while RCB’s latest player Rilee Rossouw, who replaced an injured Nic Maddinson, batted during optional training that was monitored by coach Daniel Vettori.
Talking to the media later, Vettori referred to RCB’s history at the venue while refusing to ring the alarm bells about a strong batting-unit that has so far failed to collectively chime.
Excerpts:
Seeking success at home
The team has played exceptionally well in the past here, especially our batting group.
RCB has got a great record in Bangalore. So we will lean on that heavily.
The setbacks in the Middle East
It’s just the couple of games that we haven’t seen the job through, especially the Kolkata (Knight Riders) game. Our bowling and fielding has been exceptional, and the batting has been really good in spots, but hasn’t finished the job.
Appraisals: Yuvraj Singh, A.B. de Villiers and Virat Kohli
Yuvraj helped us win the first one, played really well in the last game, and almost got us home in the third one.
AB. de Villiers won us the match against Mumbai.
These guys are all exceptionally quality players. I have always admired leaders who have that intensity on the field and immense desire to win. And that’s what Virat has done so far.
Bowling, the surprise ace
We were always confident about our bowling. There is some experience there with (Ashoke) Dinda and Mitchell Starc and Varun Aaron have done an exceptionally good job.
Albie Morkel has played lot of IPL cricket, and I had a good feeling about (Yuzvendra) Chahal after playing against him in the Champions League final (in 2011).
Will Gayle play?
I hope so. He got through the last game well. It was his desire to get back on to the park.
That’s the thing that drove him (to have the cortisone injections). There was no push from the management.
