THE BOWLERS WERE IMPRESSIVE WHICH I PERSONALLY ENJOYED A LOT- YUSUF PATHAN

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With the formation of such great batsmen up the order with the likes of Gambhir, Lynn, Robin Uthappa and Manish Pandey the middle order batsman Yusuf Pathan was not getting much of the chances to prove himself as a batsman and neither was playing any superb knock whenever hitting on a chance

Yusuf Pathan as we all know is a proven all-rounder for the Kolkata Knight Riders and has won many matches for the team, but as of now the last couple of matches played by him hjas been one of the greatest performance  from him in this edition of the IPL

“We had a good game plan and it succeeded,”Yusuf told IPLT20.com. “We were trying to get a boundary or a six in every over regardless of who the bowler was and to keep rotating the strike. The wicket was good and the partnership was also coming along well. So we were trying to put the bowlers and the captain under pressure so that they commit a mistake and so do the fielders. We backed ourselves.”

Despite the early wickets, both Yusuf and Pandey made sure that they did not go into a shell in their attempt to consolidate the innings, bringing out the big hits at regular intervals while also rotating the strike to pace their partnership well. Yusuf, who was the more aggressive of the two in the fourth-wicket stand, said he enjoyed taking on the bowlers who were bowling with a lot of steam.

“The bowlers were becoming aggressive and I was enjoying that. When the bowler comes aggressively at you, I feel good because (it means) he wants to get me out and that leads to a good contest. I enjoy that contest and fighting back,” he said. “DD has a good bowling line-up and Zaheer is captaining them really well. His field placement was also really good, but we had to hold ourselves back and stay calm. We told ourselves that we will play our shots because their field placements were really good; it could confuse the batsman. But we discussed that we shouldn’t get confused, and back ourselves and continue playing our shots whether it is going over the top or along the ground. The wicket was good and the outfield fast, so that too was helpful.

“Obviously whenever the team has needed I have always delivered. I got off to a good start and finished well, as well. I always try to assess the pressure that the bowler and the team are under when I go out to bat. (Here) When I came in to bat I was middling the ball well. The bowlers were under pressure. I could feel that they wanted my wicket. So, I was thinking that I have to stay at the wicket; as long as I am there the match is ours. I was telling myself that. I was converting the boundary balls into boundaries and the strike was rotating as well; so that was a good start,” Yusuf added.

Yusuf was also lavish in his praise of Pandey, who remained till the end, scoring an unbeaten 69 off 49 to see his team over the line with a delivery to spare. “He is batting really well right now. The way I was middling the ball and the runs were coming, I was telling him ‘the runs are coming freely. You continue to rotate the strike, and if you get the ball (which is there to be hit) for a boundary or six, convert it,'” he said of his conversations with Pandey.