In-form Watson delighted with his start

Colombo: Australia all-rounder Shane Watson has been the star of the Twenty20 World Cup so far after carrying his form from the series against Pakistan in Dubai to the tournament in Sri Lanka.

Watson has been named man of the match in both of his teams games so far — a seven-wicket win over Ireland and Saturday’s 17-run rain-affected triumph over West Indies.

The affable player already has five wickets and 92 runs to his name as Australia bid to go one better than the last T20 World Cup, when they were beaten in the final by England.

He told Gulf News about all aspects of his game and also his team’s World Cup chances.

You are in great form. Do you attribute this to the five-week break you had before flying to Dubai, as that Twenty20 series has played a big role in your success?

I suppose the break really helped me get into some kind of fitness and strength training and freshen up as well after playing a bit of cricket. It also helped me overcome the injury I had from England, so it just meant I was able to concentrate on making sure the body was fit. I continued to work and I was able to get as fit as I could going into the block of cricket that we have got. In the end, it means that my body, touch wood, is in a very good place at the moment and I hope I can continue to perform with full intensity and full capacity for a long period of time.

Against West Indies, did you go for your shots right away because you had an inkling that it might rain and hence you needed a superior run-rate?

Actually I had no idea that there was rain around, right up until it started drizzling and I saw all the ground staff running on with the covers. It didn’t influence me at all the way we batted. We knew we had to try and get the runs to balls down as close as we could and as quick as we could, because when you are chasing over 190, you always have to have a few big overs in there if you are going to chase it down. If Mike [Hussey] or I got out at that time, it wasn’t too big of a task for the guys coming in later on. In the end we had no idea about the rain until it started pouring.

You must have been worried to see Chris Gayle thrashing the Australian attack after you dropped him. How pleasing was it to dismiss him yourself?

I know how much of a difference it makes to get Chris Gayle out. No doubt I was feeling that pain until I was able to get him out. In the mean time, he had done a fair bit of damage and given a lot of momentum to the West Indian side. That was very disappointing for me to drop him, though I tried to make up for it in some way with the bat. It never makes you feel any better, but at least it gave us a chance of winning the game anyway.

You must have felt very lucky to see the chance you gave being dropped over the rope for a six?

I was very happy, especially that he [Dwayne Smith] tipped it over for the six as well. That certainly helped. Smith is a very good fielder — as soon as I spotted exactly where the shot went I was just about 100 per cent confident he was going to catch it. One thing I did know is that I had hit it right out of the middle, so it was going to take quite some catching.

So do you see that catch as the turning point of the match?

Not really. My dropped catch of Gayle certainly turned the game in the West Indians’ favour. Unfortunately, dropped catches can turn events and I was lucky it was my turn while I was batting.

How do you enjoy your aggressive approach to the batting and how tough is it to chase tall scores?

When you are chasing 190, we knew that we had to score very quickly. We had no real chance to be able to give ourselves a bit of time to see what the wicket was doing. It is a real pleasure to bat with David Warner because you know that if he has a day like he had today he sets everything up absolutely perfectly. That certainly makes it a lot easier for me. It takes a lot of pressure off and then Mike Hussey, he is just an amazing batsman to watch. He looks like he is not taking any risks but he scores very quickly. We are very lucky to have Mike batting at three. He has been able to adapt from opening to bat No 3 and he is doing it so beautifully well. Our top three are very important to us to be able to set a platform for our batting unit and hopefully not put too much pressure on those guys as much as we can. It’s not going to happen every game — you just hope you have more good days than bad days.