Thaindian News

Chennai, April 16 (IANS) Adapting to the changing game situations was the cornerstone of his match-winning knock of 83 not out, said Michael Hussey who anchored the Chennai Super Kings to a 21-run win against the Royal Challengers Bangalore in an Indian Premier League game here Saturday.

While admitting that he was a tad lucky in being dropped a couple of times, Hussey said the small partnerships with Murali Vijay and then Suresh Raina set up the team’s total of 183.

“I was playing according to the situation of the game. Vijay and I wanted to give a good start. I thought it was better to get the runs early as the pitch was good with the new ball.

“It was just a case of playing and had the partnerships going. Vijay was part of the partnership as then he got out. We had to start with Raina to create a platform. He set himself hard and helped couple of momentum going again and I was just playing with those sorts of guys really.

“It was a case of quickly assessing the situation as we lost couple of wickets and setting up a good total,” said Hussey at the post-match media conference.

The Aussie southpaw said the key to Super Kings’ success also lay in the flexibility while exercising options, especially in deciding on the four foreign players in the playing eleven.

“Sometimes, I might have to go opening and try and set a platform for the team. There might be other times that I might be batting in the middle order.

“I think the Chennai team is very flexible. We might bring in (Scott) Styris in the other game and bring in (Dough) Bollinger and so on. We can be very flexible with the overseas players. Today was a great opportunity to open the innings,” he said.

Meanwhile, Challengers skipper Daniel Vettori was obviously disappointed, not just at his team’s third defeat in four matches but also the fielding that he admitted contributed in a large measure to the reverse.

“Fielding cost us the game. Two catches were dropped early in their innings and probably two more latter on. If I compare the last game to this, unfortunately we lost the game that we could have won today.

“I would say that a little bit of fielding and bowling rather than batting disappointed us today. Fielding is an attitudinal problem, especially when you drop catches. The 20-20 format is all about pressure and noise from the stands,” he said.

Reflecting on the batting of Virat Kohli and A.B. de Villiers, the skipper asserted that while the two are quality batsmen, others needed to support them.

“Obviously, they are big time players. They need to score as well and they need to people to help them too. Both played pretty well. We thought of giving some good chances to (Cheteshwar) Pujara in early matches. Of course, he was looking to be a more than an average player to me,” said Vettori.