After a dramatic quarterfinal victory over Uttar Pradesh, when it chased down a record-breaking 372 in the fourth innings, there is no shortage of confidence in the Saurashtra side.
“We’ve beaten Karnataka this season; we have the momentum on our side,” Jaydev Unadkat, the visiting captain, said here on Wednesday. “The quarterfinal was one of the best games in Saurashtra history, if not the best. Most teams would’ve fallen down and said it was over when UP were 107/1 in the third innings. The way we came back and fought in the fourth innings proved that we can beat any other team in India.”
Unadkat agreed with Cheteshwar Pujara’s feeling that Saurashtra had been desperate for success in the past. “That happens when a team like us, who haven’t really won any big championships in the past, get to the final,” he said.
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“We were a bit more eager to show we can win the championship. But having played a couple of finals and now that we have a set-up where players have established themselves in the team, we are not really desperate to show anything. We are enjoying ourselves as a unit. In the last game, even when we weren’t doing well, we were still together, laughing and having fun in the field. That’s when teams win big games.”
Unadkat was pleased with the pitch rolled out for the semifinal tie at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium. “It looks like a good surface. They’ve kept some grass so that it lasts for five days. It will provide some help for the fast bowlers initially and later on for the spinners,” he said.