As Ok.V. Sasikanth bagged the wicket of Himanshu Mantri shortly after lunch on Friday, the Andhra gamers rallied round him to rejoice the massive wicket.
Over the following hour or so, each time Sasikanth bowled, the teammates whistled and applauded to make sure that he remained motivated. And, because the 28-year-old quick bowler claimed a four-for to tear aside Madhya Pradesh middle-order, the cheers continued.
“It was all part of the plan,” Sasikanth instructed Sportstar after the day’s play. “On the field, we spoke about little things – like cheering for each other after every good ball. Since I was getting wickets, the teammates wanted to create that hype around me and that sort of helped me get the best out of myself,” he stated with a smile.
Despite dominating the primary session, Madhya Pradesh batting line-up collapsed like a pack of playing cards with Sasikanth and Ok Nithish Kumar Reddy respiration fireplace. “We kept targets per session – like giving away just 60 runs in 30 overs and things like that. Those goals helped everyone to be attentive and work towards achieving them,” Sasikanth stated.
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“In the first session, a few runs went through the edges, but we bowled decently. After lunch, we had to go all out, and we bowled in good areas. As a team, we believed that it’s okay if one session went their way, the other would come to us, and that approach worked,” he added.
Andhra reached the quarterfinals of the match final yr, however ended up dropping to Madhya Pradesh by 5 wickets. This time, in a re-match of types, Sasikanth and Nithish determined to bowl in the correct areas and that appeared to work.
“We played a few quarterfinals before, so we were underdogs and there was nothing to lose. So, we took it like just another game and our aim was to keep doing what we did in the group league and that helped,” he stated.
Source web site: sportstar.thehindu.com
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