Chennai Super Kings all-rounder Albie Morkel, who played a key role in his side's thrilling last-ball win over Royal Challengers Bangalore, said on Thursday that it will be a mistake to write off the three-time champions of the Twenty20 tournament.
Published: Apr 13, 2012, 12:29 PM (IST)
Edited: Apr 13, 2012, 12:29 PM (IST)
Albie Morkel has played the role of finisher down the batting order in many matches for Chennai Super Kings © Getty Images
Chennai: 13, Apr, 2012
Chennai Super Kings all-rounder Albie Morkel, who played a key role in his side’s thrilling last-ball win over Royal Challengers Bangalore, said on Thursday that it will be a mistake to write off the three-time champions of the Twenty20 tournament.
Chennai Super Kings successfully chased a humongous target of 206 against Bangalore at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Thursday. With 43 required off the last two overs, RCB were well and truly in the driver’s seat.
However, the burly South African all-rounder turned the match dramatically by smashing 28 runs off the 19th over, bowled by Virat Kohli. In all, Morkel hit three sixes and two fourshitting 28 from the seven balls he faced.
After scripting this sensational win for CSK, Morkel said belief has been the key ingredient in the team’s tremendous success over the years. “Even if you look at the other tournaments in the past, often we had a slow start and then a good game and we continued on from there. You can never write us off. Tonight, it was a good wicket. Faf du Plessis played well up front and Dhoni was good. I’m just really happy. We had a slow start to this tournament; we got bowled out for [about] 100 in two games, so hopefully, this will give us a bit of confidence.”
“I think it was very good wicket, and we had to believe in ourselves that if we play well, we will get close. I think we were bit behind the required rate; but as they say, a T20 game is not over till it’s over,” Albie was quoted as saying by the tournament’s official portal.
Speaking about his team’s ability to chase big totals with good finishers in the ranks, Albie said, “Sometime it creates a problem. When you have a big batting line-up, you sort of lose your responsibility as a player, because you know that you have guys behind you. But on a night like tonight, it’s great to have big hitters down the order.”
Talking about the choice of bowler for the penultimate over, he said, “We knew that was going to happen. The two very good spinners were bowled out early, and I think they tried to win the game before the last over. So, we knew they would have to bowl a part-timer at some point at the death.”
“We were a little bit disappointed. When a team puts 200 on the board, it’s a big total in T20. But it was a good wicket and we knew we could chase it down if we bat deep. This was a completely different wicket than the one in the first game, which had a lot of grass on it. This was a fantastic wicket; and if we play on the same wicket, we will have a lot of high-scoring.” said Albie about the high total being set by RCB.
