It wasn’t easy to change my batting’s foundation: Padikkal

Royal Challengers Bengaluru batter Devdutt Padikkal attributed his growing confidence in white ball formats to the willingness to move out of his comfort zone and “change the foundation” of his batting.

Devdutt followed his 61 against Sunrisers Hyderabad in the opening game with a 50 against Chennai Super Kings here on Sunday to fuel RCB’s batting charge, which culminated in a 43-run win.

“It’s just a lot of hard work and a lot of self-belief that’s helped me get there. It wasn’t easy to make that change because it was something that I had to change from the foundation that I had in terms of the type of cricket I wanted to play growing up,” Devdutt said in the post-match press conference on Sunday night.

“The change is something that I had to make consciously and RCB and the whole support staff have been really great in guiding me in the right way,” he added.

But is there a danger of T20s becoming unidimensional because all the batters are looking to improve their range-hitting skills?

“I don’t think so because it’s just that the batting in this tournament that has gone up another level. I think everyone is working so hard to hit those big sixes and fours and it’s now the bowler’s job to really follow that and try to take their game up a level as well and I think we are gonna get there.”

The left-hander reckons bowlers will make a comeback sooner rather than later from the early rounds of shellacking.

“I’m very confident that all the bowlers will show up as well and as the tournament goes on the wickets will also start to slow down a little bit and those things will change and that’s that’s how it goes.”