Published: Oct 03, 2014, 06:42 PM (IST)
Edited: Oct 03, 2014, 08:14 PM (IST)
Oct 3, 2014
Parvinder Awana was on seventh sky after getting the first hat-trick of the tournament, but the contentment was short-lived as his team, Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) ended up losing the semi-finals to Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by 65 runs at the Rajiv Gandhi International stadium in Hyderabad.
Speaking about his performance and the hat-trick, he was pretty impressed. “I did exactly what I have been doing in the previous matches. My rhythm was good today and following my plan got me those wickets. The plan was to not give them any room and bowl a full length. Since the wicket was slow, I was also putting in more effort by hitting the deck hard.” he said to clt20.com.
On being asked about his favourite wicket in the hat-trick, he hailed Suresh Raina‘s wicket the favourite of all. “When I got Dhoni bhai (MS Dhoni) out, I didn’t know it was the hat-trick ball. But I really enjoyed Raina bhai’s (Suresh Raina) wicket. He tends to hit that ball really well. I bowled length and hit it hard. It worked in my favour.” he added.
With Mitchell Johnson missing the tournament due to injury, Awana is currently senior-most bowler in the team. Speaking on his experience as the team bowling leader, he said, ” At the beginning of the tournament itself Sanjay (Bangar) sir and Joe (Dawes) had told me that I would be playing the role of the spearhead. They asked me to take this opportunity and grow from it as a bowler. I had picked wickets for KXIP previously as well, so it was the right step ahead for me with youngsters like Anureet (Singh) coming in.”
“Anureet, Akshar (Patel) and I generally stay together even off the field, so we understand each other well. We often watched matches on TV and spoke about what plans we would bowl with against those teams. Also, everyone’s role is very clear in the team and we all understand exactly what is expected off us.” he added.
However, speaking about the team’s dismal performance in the semi-finals, he said that the incessant loss of wickets was the main cause for the defeat as the team failed to capitalise on it. He also felt that the lack of momentous partnership was also a reason and had that gone the right way, it would have been a different game all-together.
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