Using a flatter trajectory helped: Piyush Chawla

Manoj Tiwary was the Delhi Daredevils’ innings top-scorer as the hosts struggled to set the Kolkata Knight Riders a competitive target in the game at the Ferozeshah Kotla. Playing his fourth match of Pepsi IPL 2015, the DD middle-order batsman walked out to bat – for the first time this season – with his team struggling at 22 for two. He was involved in partnerships of 36 and 37 with Shreyas Iyer and Yuvraj Singh respectively, before returning to the dug-out.

It was a hard day’s work for the batsmen, Tiwary said after his team had lost the game to the defending champions. Analysing the match while speaking to iplt20.com, the batsmen felt the team needs to work on building big partnerships while adding that the hosts were 15-20 runs short of what they should have made.

Although he was glad that he could get runs under his belt, he rued not getting a bigger score and helping the team to a larger total after having done the hard yards. Excerpts from post match interview:A hard fought game of cricket?All the games have been close, which is a good sign, but unfortunately we aren’t getting the two points which we are looking for. But we have been playing good cricket.

In this particular match I think we were 15-20 runs short and we lost two wickets early in the game. From there we needed to put on a partnership, we were good enough to score 140 odd runs (but should have been able to take it further). Gautam bhai (Gambhir) batted really well to take his team through.

Was it a little difficult for batsmen today?Yes, it was a bit of a two paced wicket. The ball was keeping a bit low and it was also bouncing a bit. You got an opportunity to bat, must feel good to get runs under your belt?Yes, it was my first opportunity to bat in this IPL and I am happy with the way I scored runs.

But I should have continued for a few more overs, (but) unfortunately got out. I was batting well and if we had gone on to win the match, it would have been better. Was it difficult was it to build partnerships?We lost two wickets early, so we needed to build partnerships.

We got one partnership going but then again lost a wicket (when it was taking shape). The one big partnership that was required didn’t happen. What was the reason for that? Was it the nature of the wicket because of which the batsmen were finding it difficult to get in?Yes, it was difficult because of that.

And then Yuvi paa (Yuvraj Singh) also got out in an unfortunate manner and the other batsmen too couldn’t contribute much because of the nature of the pitch.What kind of pressure were you under while batting?Obviously there was pressure. We had discussed in the team meeting that if we can pull off a win in this match it would boost our standing in the points table.

Everyone put in their best efforts but we couldn’t make it. However, the way we are playing I hope we will do well in the coming games. What are the areas that haven’t really clicked and DD needs to work on moving forward?As a batting group we need to build big partnerships.

The set batsman will have to play a big innings which is not happening.Would you say that the bowling too needs to be tightened?145 odd runs are too few (to defend) in a T20 game and there is a lot of pressure on the bowlers. So if we as a batting group can score more runs then I think the bowlers will have something to bowl at.

Before the next match, which is a couple of days from now, what is the one area you need to get right?Batting unit (needs to fire)! If we can score around 170 runs in the T20 format then it definitely poses problems for the opposition. So as a batting group we would want to take the team to around the 170 run mark one way or the other. .

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