Siddharth Trivedi, in his sixth Indian premier league season, is a veteran. And he realises it too, contributing valuable inputs to the team’s victories. Like the other night at the SMS Stadium here when he picked up the Man-of-the-match award for his three wickets — Gautam Gambhir, Manoj Tiwary and Laxmi Ratan Shukla.
All his strikes came at a time when the team needed it the most as Rajasthan Royals defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by 19 runs. “It went as per plan,” said Trivedi.
“We played five fast bowlers and everyone gave his best and produced a wicket whenever we needed. We worked well as a team.
Nice pitch
“It was a nice pitch. The ball was seaming a bit and there was lot of carry too. We aimed to take a couple of wickets upfront and it worked because we could put pressure on them.”
The 30-year-old seamer stressed that “getting Gambhir and (Jacques) Kallis was important. Of course the wicket of (Eoin) Morgan too ensured we wrapped up the contest.”
On the trend of bowlers excelling in the IPL matches thus far, Trivedi said: “Favourable pitches in home games are helping the bowlers excel. But it is a long way to go; maybe batsmen would also play their dominant part later. Bowlers have to bring in variety and look to surprise the batsmen. It is an engaging contest with team effort being very important.”
Having played for Rajasthan Royals right through his IPL career, Trivedi, with a haul of 53 wickets from 59 matches, said, “I am looking forward to seeing Rajasthan qualify for the finals. I have been emotionally attached to this team from the start. They gave me the exposure to play in such a big tournament and I want to give my best always.”
Dravid fined
Meanwhile, RR captain Rahul Dravid was fined for slow over-rate during Monday night’s Pepsi IPL match against KKR here. At the end of the match, RR was assessed to be two overs behind the required rate after allowances were taken into consideration.
Since it was his first offence of the season under the IPL’s Code of Conduct relating to minimum over-rate offences, Dravid was fined $20,000.
