Hyderabad edged out Gujarat Lions by four wickets here last night in Qualifier 2 to set up a summit clash with Bangalore, who had beaten the same opponents in Qualifier 1.
“We will definitely strategise because I read somewhere the other day that Virat Kohli has scored 35 per cent of RCB’s runs. It’ll be a big task for us to get (Chris) Gayle, Virat (Kohli) and AB (De Villers) and later, (Shane) Watson, out. We are hoping for a good contest,” Bhuvneshwar said at the post match press conference here.
“We’ll enjoy for now because we know there’s a pressure match coming up,” he said.
Bhuvneshwar said losing Mustafizur Rahman in the Qualifier 2 was not an ideal situation for them but backed Kiwi paceman Trent Boult, who replaced the Bangladeshi pacer. “Mustafizur did really well but losing him in a crucial game wasn’t good for us but Boult did very well. It’s a part of the game that he went for a few runs in the second last over. But if you look at him, he has really worked hard in the nets. He knew that there might be a chance for him to play either the semifinals or finals but you can’t say he has given runs; it’s a part of the game. Losing Fizz wasn’t good for us,” he said.
Warner had earlier said that he would like his batsmen to put up big totals for the bowlers to defend but Hyderabad decided to bowl last night. Asked about the decision, Bhuvneshwar said keeping the opponent’s strength in mind, it was the best decision to take.
“We had decided in the meeting to bowl first. If you look at their (Gujarat’s) batting line-up, they have good batsmen like (Aaron) Finch, (Suresh) Raina, (Brendon) McCullum and (Dwayne) Smith. They are good chasers. So we wanted to make them bat first so that we could get them out early and chase down the target,” he explained.
Bipul Sharma may have surprised many with his fast-scoring ability last night but Bhuvneshwar said they knew that Bipul could do it. Bipul played a sensational unbeaten 27 under pressure to support skipper Warner at the other end.
“The last 4-5 overs when Bipul went in to bat (was the turning point). Warner needed support from the other end, which Bipul provided. It’s never easy to go out and score runs immediately, but Bipul hit. He’s a good pinch-hitter. He told Warner that he would give him support when he went in to bat and that’s exactly what we wanted.”
Talking about his own comeback after an injury lay-off, the lean Meerut bowler said he worked hard to eliminate the flaws in his technique after finding that he was not doing the basics right. “It took me some time to recover after Australia tour. Things changed a lot. I got the pace but lost swing, which is my strength and I did not want to lose it. I found that there were flaws in technique and sometimes the conditions did not support me. I worked on it. I learnt that I had strayed from the basics. But I worked hard on getting it back.”
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