Dubai: All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja believes Chennai Super Kings are building some useful momentum in the early stages of the Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) 2014.
The 25-year-old Indian limited-overs specialist played a starring role as Chennai won their second successive match when seeing off Rajasthan Royals by seven runs at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium here on Wednesday night.
That result followed on from Chennai’s big win over Delhi Daredevils on Monday, while the only match they have lost so far — against Kings XI Punjab in their opener — came despite them scoring 205 batting first.
And Jadeja, who scored an unbeaten 36 from 33 balls before taking four wickets against the Royals, is pleased with Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s side’s progress.
“This game was very important. We needed to carry on our momentum after winning our last game in Abu Dhabi,” the former Rajasthan player said.
He added: “Because the wicket was pretty slow and the ball was keeping low, we knew that if we put 140 or 150 on the board, that was a good total on this track.
“[When Rajasthan were losing wickets, we knew] Twenty20 is a format where anybody can change the game, so Mahendra kept telling us ‘don’t take it lightly, anything can happen’, so we were on our toes.”
Batting first, Chennai were in trouble at 74 for five in the 12th over, but Jadeja teamed up with first Mithun Manhas and then Ravichandran Ashwin to help the team to a defendable total.
And with so many other batsmen giving their wickets away while playing big shots, he admitted he just tried to bat sensibly.
“When I was batting, I was just talking to myself that the wicket was slow and the ball was keeping low, so don’t try to look for big shots, just try and rotate the strike and play until the end. I was just looking for singles and doubles, I took like three or four doubles,” Jadeja said.
“When bowling, I was just trying to bowl in the right areas. I wasn’t thinking about looking for wickets, I was just trying to bowl dot balls and the wicket will do everything else. I just kept reminding myself of that.”
