Bailey is proud, but not smiling
Kings XI Punjab captain George Bailey wasn’t beaming. The huge smile that adorned his face for most part of the Indian Premier league 2014 was conspicuous by its absence on Sunday night. like most other times this season, his team played the typical entertaining brand of cricket that has become synonymous with Punjab once again but this time it wasn’t rewarded by a victory. Kolkata Knight Riders in general, and Manish Pandey in particular with his special knock, stole that triumphant feeling that they had become accustomed to after putting up a huge total on the board. KKR chased down 200-run target to deny them their first IPl title in seven years.
Bailey, who has quite a knack of producing punch-lines to tone down the intensity of questions, certainly looked out of sorts and miffed when he was probed by the scribes about Glenn Maxwell’s form and his decision to promote himself up the order. Though he claimed to be proud of this team for reaching the final, the missing smile on his face told the different story. Excerpts….
For the first time any batsman scored a hundred in the IPl final yet you ended up on the losing side. How difficult is that to takeIJ
I think sometimes, it’s better to lose finals by big margins, isn’t itIJ The closer the margin, the more what-ifs you have and things you think about that you could have done differently. But I don’t think our guys can do anything but be very proud of their performance. Wriddhi’s (Wriddhiman Saha) innings in a lot of way summed up our tournament. He is probably a guy who is unheralded a little bit, probably underrated in a lot of circles, but for us, he has just been solid as a rock. He has done different jobs at different times, he has been a wonderful person on and off the field, so to see him perform well was fantastic.
What was the rationale behind changing the batting order and you coming at No 3IJ
In the three games prior to this against Kolkata, I think we had made 130 (132/9), 140 (149/8) and 130 (135/8). And we have struggled a lot against their spin. Our best player against spin is Glenn Maxwell, or probably (Virender) Sehwag and Maxwell. So we were just trying to spread them out a little bit, force Kolkata to do something a bit different. On the flip side of that, if you had said we were going to make 200 and Sehwag, (David) Miller and Maxwell were not going to get any runs, I would have been very surprised. I was really proud of the way Manan (Vohra, who made 67) and Wriddhi batted. I thought it was just a wonderful, wonderful partnership. They summed it up, took their time early on and then they exploded and got us to a really good total.
In hindsight, don’t you think David Miller would have been a better option for No 3 than youIJ
Yeah, we certainly could have (batted Miller at No. 3). That’s hindsight and that’s the gift you have. But if you look at the way I have played the tournament, I have certainly scored most of my runs against the quick bowlers. And if you look at the way Kolkata have structured their innings, they have certainly used most of their quicks at the top of the innings.
In the last five, six games, Glenn Maxwell looked out of form. Was there any thought to drop him for this match and give a chance to Shaun MarshIJ
Explain to me ‘out of form’ in Twenty20. What does that meanIJ Yusuf Pathan was out of touch before he hit 70 in 20. I don’t understand form in T20. You don’t lose the ability to hit, Glenn Maxwell still had that ability. I think the side that we had had propelled us to 12 wins and four losses. That structure that we had was a wonderful structure.
On such a good batting wicket, KXIP were just 58 for 2 after first 10 overs. You think that cost you the finalIJ
No. You can look at different periods however you like, but the fact of the matter is that we ended up with 200 and you would take 200 on any ground in any T20 game. I think what you need to do is look at how well Kolkata have bowled right throughout the tournament. I would imagine that would be the highest score anyone has scored against them, quite comfortably. Certainly, off the top of my head, the stats that we have looked at, it was very, very hard to score much more than 160 against them.
Akshar Patel (emerging player of the tournament) is the find of this IPl edition. Your thoughts on himIJ
He is such an impressive package. Right from the first day, the knowledge of his own game and the awareness of his own game that he has for a 20-year-old has been phenomenal. The calmness that he has, the poise that he has in big games. I said the other night that in the first couple of games, we tried to look after him and used him at times that we thought would be most beneficial to him but by the end of the tournament, he was bowling our key overs, he was our real go-to bowler. He is a wonderful fielder. I think he is going to have a long and very successful career.
Can you tell us about the influence of coach Sanjay Bangar on the teamIJ
It is hard to convey. As I said out in the middle, I think this group is just a wonderful group. I have played in a lot of cricket teams over a lot of years and worked very hard at building teams and sometimes it just clicks and you get it right. This is a wonderful group of people, most importantly, and Sanjay is the leader of that, he is the head of that. Everything that you see and like about Kings XI starts with Sanjay Bangar. His knowledge of the game is wonderful, his ability to draw the younger players out of their shells to play as well as they have has been phenomenal. The way he has managed the overseas players, he has just been fantastic. He has had some great support from Joe Dawes and (R) Sridhar, our fielding coach, but he has certainly been a high quality coach, I have been really impressed. It has been a pleasure to work with him.