Sharjah: Coach Gary Kirsten, who guided India to World Cup triumph in 2011, masterminded Delhi Daredevils’ triumph over Kolkata Knight Riders on Saturday in the Pepsi Indian Premier League match at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
It was Kirsten’s theory of keeping cool and concentrating on the process, added to stand-in skipper Dinesh Karthik’s go-getter attitude, that paved Delhi’s route to an exciting four-wicket win after chasing Kolkata’s impressive total of 166 for five.
“A lot of credit must go to our coach Kirsten as he’s somebody who doesn’t get too emotional and swayed by things and results,” said Karthik, who led from the front by top-scoring with 56 off 40 balls in a show that reduced the pressure of skipper Kevin Pietersen’s absence due to a hand injury.
“He believes in the processes, which is one of the key elements in the IPL. He tells us to believe in processes and keep doing all the back work and keep on doing without stress for all the players.”
When Gulf News asked Karthik about his approach to chasing a challenging target, he said: “It was a good wicket to bat on. They have a solid bowling attack, no doubt about that. But we have good batters and it’s important that we trust our batters. And we believed that we can get the target.”
Karthik then went on to hail Duminy’s unbeaten knock of 52. “Duminy is a world-class player. He is able to stand his ground under pressure and hit the big shots when it matters and knock the ball around. He is somebody who is very confident and key to our batting plans. The good thing was that we were in check with the run-rate. It never got too far ahead of us. We were playing good cricketing shots and getting boundaries and we weren’t panicking at any stage and we were running well between wickets. It was a good partnership.”
Karthik was not disappointed with Ross Taylor’s failure against Kolkata. “In the last match against Bangalore, his knock was the key for us because from the stage we were in, to get to 145 was a good effort,” he said. “Ross has played a key role in keeping things in control and towards the end he got a few boundaries. Cricket is a game where you can’t hit every ball. We back him. We know he can win us games and that’s what we believe.
“The good thing is that when you are winning, you don’t need to try too much, you have a winning combination right then and there. It’s only when you don’t do well that everything becomes a problem and whatever you do might go wrong.”
