Played out of character: McCullum
Chris Morris’s first taste of the IPL came in 2013 when he was bought by Chennai Super Kings at the auction for a whopping 625,000 USD. Fast forward two years and the South African all-rounder produced his best bowling performance of the IPL in Chennai. Only this time it was an away game for him.
Playing for Rajasthan Royals, against CSK, Morris returned an outstanding 3 for 19. Out of his 24 balls, an incredible 12 were dots. The batsmen he dismissed were Brendon McCullum, Suresh Raina and the in-form Pawan Negi.
However, what could have been Morris’s best outing in the IPL, turned out one of the toughest as RR fell 12 runs short of CSK’s 157. Disappointment of the loss writ large on his face when he spoke to iplt20.com after the game.
Morris also revealed the reason behind RR’s decision to hand over the team’s captaincy to Steve Smith mid-tournament even as their original skipper, Shane Watson was in the playing XI.Not quite the right result for the team but you did achieve your best IPL bowling figures.Pretty happy with that but disappointed with the loss.
I thought it was a par score that they got. I honestly felt we had a good chance half way through the game but credit to them for bowling really well. It is very disappointing.
This wicket is a bit different compared to most in the IPL. You played a few games here in 2013. Did that help you?The nets that we had last night were quite helpful.
It was a bit of an indication of what the pitch would be like. That helped me form my plans today.You used the short ball to a good effect today.
Was it to counter the slowness of the pitch?Because the wicket is a bit slow, the batsmen expect a lot of slower balls and pitched-up deliveries. So, I thought I’ll use the bouncer as a surprise ball. I thought Mohit Sharma did that really well today as well.
He used it well and also got a wicket off it. It doesn’t always come off in the T20 format. It was nice that it did come off tonight.
It’s good to see that the yorkers are still not completely out of fashion at the death.That is something I work really hard on and train a lot for in the nets. If you get it right no one can really hit the yorker out of the park unless you are Brendon McCullum and go on one knee.
It is also a confidence thing. On some days it lands well for you and today was just one of those days for me.You last league game is against KKR.
A tough situation to be in in terms of the tournament?Yes, it is. KKR are a very good side and they are on a roll at the moment. They will be a very difficult team to beat with all the spinners they have.
It will be a tough game, but so has every game that we have played. We will have to win it somehow, it is as simple as that.RR started the tournament on a roll with five straight wins.
What really went wrong after that?I really don’t know. I guess the oppositions got their teams right in terms of selection. Look, there were a couple of games that went to the last ball.
Cricket is a game of margins and we needed to get the last ball to go our way but it didn’t on a couple of occasions. I will not point fingers at any particular department. The entire team wins or loses.
There have been some mistakes that we have made and spoken about. At the end of the day it is the small margins in cricket that will cost you.What led to the decision of changing the captain mid-tournament?It happened a couple of days ago.
Watto (Watson) just thought he needed to focus more on his batting and bowling. It is a tough job to captain a T20 team, especially when you are bowling first and your mind is a bit all over the game. And then you come off and strap your batting pads on in 10 minutes.
It becomes a bit of roller-coaster game. I doff my hat off to Watto for giving up the captaincy and taking more responsibility for his batting. It was a responsible thing to do.
We all appreciate it as team men and move on from there..
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