M42: KKR vs DD – Man of the Match – Piyush Chawla 4:13 2,596 Views Things didn’t quite go Piyush Chawla’s way when he was tossed the ball by the Kolkata Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir in the 8th over of the match. His first two deliveries were dealt with severely by young Shreyas Iyer; he welcomed him with a six over extra cover and followed it up with a boundary. Ten runs of two deliveries already and Piyush was in a danger of leaking far too many runs early in his spell.

For the record, his first spell of two overs went for 23 runs with a sole wicket of Manoj Tiwary. But, Chawla kept his cool and came back strong in his second spell giving away just 9 runs and picking up three wickets. “That’s how T20 works you know.

Sometimes you go for runs in the first two overs and sometimes you go for runs in the last over. As a bowler it depends how strongly you comeback if you go for runs in the first couple of overs,” Chawla said about his strong comeback. “At that time I was only looking for wickets because that was the only thing by which I could contain the batsman.

They were going well against me and taking their chances. “Picking wickets was the only thing that I had in my mind when I came back for the second spell. Their required rate was mounting close to 11 and I knew they were going to go after me.

I just had to bowl in good areas to get those wickets.”A highlight of Chawla’s bowling was that he wasn’t afraid to flight the ball even after going for runs in the first spell. Explaining the thought behind giving the ball good flight, Chawla said, “Flighting the ball depends on the situation.

Sometimes you need to flight and sometimes you don’t need to. At times the batsman walks in and looks to go after you. You bowl during the 16th or 17th over at times and you still tend to flight the ball to take that extra bit of risk to get the wicket.

It depends on the situation. Tonight the ball wasn’t turning that much on this pitch, but it was still on the slower side. You still need to bowl in good areas to get the wickets.

”He sure picked his quota of wickets and his four included the big two - Yuvraj Singh and Delhi Daredevils captain JP Duminy. Chawla bowled at a time when the Daredevils were going after everything and it required great courage to keep them under check and look for wickets. The leggie believed containing runs instead of looking for wickets was a form of defensive mechanism for him as a bowler.

“I always go for wickets as a leg-spinner. I never think of containing the batsman. The moment you start thinking that you have to contain the batsman, I take that as a defensive role.

When you try to pick up wickets you go for runs as well but you can only win matches by taking wickets.” Bowling aside, KKR took everyone by surprise when they sent in Piyush Chawla at No.4.

Chawla explained the logic behind the move and was more than happy to spend some time in the middle with the bat. He scored a 19-ball 22 that included one four and one six, just the kind of lift KKR needed when they were going at a slow scoring rate. “We wanted to have a left-hander in when two leg-spinners were bowling.

The plan for me was to go and take some chances against the leg-spinners but whatever amount of balls I faced I hardly played against the leg-spinners. It was just a matter of the first two or three balls and after that they didn’t bowl their leg-spinner at all,” Chawla said. .

Source: http://www.iplt20.com/news/2015/features/6633/simmons-happy-to-be-a-silent-performer