Young Mandeep tries to emulate AB at every step

Pune: Mandeep Singh of Royal Challengers Bangalore, who grabbed eyeballs as the IPL VIII progressed, could not help gushing about the match-winning partnership with AB de Villiers on Wednesday.

“There are a lot of things that I try to do like AB,” Mandeep told iplt20.com. “I want to have my head still the way he does in each shot,” he said. “I have learnt a lot from him already and whatever he has taught me, I have straightaway incorporated in my game. It is already helping me and I can see a lot of positive results in my batting.”

The half-century against Rajasthan Royals came at the right time for him and the team. Talking about the knock, Mandeep added: “This half-century is very satisfying because we wanted to get a score of 150-plus on this pitch and

I was happy to stay there till the very end.

“AB de Villiers and I thought that anything around 150 would be great and finishing on 180 was very satisfying. I think the occasion of this innings makes it a lot more valuable. Getting an important knock in the Eliminator is really heartening because it was a big occasion. I feel I played really well in this game.”

“When we were just around 60 runs in 10 overs, we just wanted to bat and try to build a partnership from there on. We wanted to keep things simple and watch the ball closely and hit it. I knew if AB spent a little more time in the middle, he would get ruthless in the end. I had the confidence that AB would see us through.”