Sharjah: Rilee Rossouw, who hit his second successive half-century to guide Quetta Gladiators to their second consecutive win on Saturday, attributed his form to tips from batting coach and mentor Viv Richards and coach Moeen Khan.
Answering a query from Gulf News on his sizzling form, the South African, after his man-of-the-match-winning knock of an unbeaten 76 to defeat Karachi Kings by seven wickets, said: “I have been working a lot with the team management. They have done a really good job. Sir Viv [Richards] and Moeen Khan helped me a lot on what conditions to expect. It has been a real team environment, a good push in the right direction.”
The highlight of Quetta’s victory was the brilliant running between the wickets by skipper Sarfraz Ahmad and Rossouw. “The challenge was taking it deep, Sarf [Sarfraz] and I batted well together, kept the momentum going with our running. I don’t think we’ll do any fitness training this week due to our running.”
In fact, Sarfraz stressed on the importance of running between the wickets. “It isn’t necessary we hit boundaries all the time. My plan was to stay long there and run fast. I knew if we stayed till the end, we would win because it was a great pitch. These days chasing eight or nine runs per over is easy if you stay till the end and run hard.”
Karachi skipper Sangakkara sportingly praised the running between the wickets of Rossouw and Sarfraz. “Their running between wickets was outstanding I thought both Sarfraz and Rilee ran very hard to put a lot of pressure on our boys. It is great when you bat in T20s, especially when you don’t get boundaries, you’ve got to run, and they played a really good innings each to take the game away from us.”
Rossouw revealed that the team spirit after two wins is fantastic. “Everyone has been very positive. With these two wins, it has definitely put the momentum in the right direction. It is a great team environment at the moment.”
When asked about his approach to the game, especially on a tough wicket, Rossouw said: “I just try and play ball by ball. I don’t put too much pressure on myself. I believe if I prepare well, my executions will be good on the day. I have prepared well really before the matches and I haven’t got the 100 per cent picture of what to expect but I have got in bits and pieces and put them together and it has really panned out well.”
Sangakkara expressed the view that his team is a bowler short. “We are probably a bowler short in the middle to really try and get an advantage but we also could have probably pushed a bit more in the powerplay — but it was not to be. I thought we bowled really well again in the powerplay and took some early wickets but, to capitalise on that, we needed probably another full-time bowler. Rilee batted beautifully, Babar Azam showed a lot of promise — we are still there but not quite.”
Brief scores: Quetta Gladiators bt Karachi Kings by 7 wkts. Karachi Kings 159 for eight in 20 overs (Babar Azam 50, Kumar Sangakkara 25, Thisara Perera 3 for 34, Tymal Mills 2 for 15) Quetta Gladiators 160 for 3 in 19.1 overs (Rilee Rossouw 76 n.o., Sarfraz Ahmad 56n.o, Sohail Khan 3 for 23).
Monday-Tuesday: Rest days.
