Our franchisee did not pressurise us

It's good to be back to our winning ways once again, with two victories in our last two games. I don't believe in anything like momentum when it comes to Twenty20 cricket, because, as we have seen in this tournament, you win some and lose some.

At this stage in the tournament, the tussle for the semi-finals has got intense, but two sides, the Bangalore Royal Challengers and Hyderabad Deccan Chargers are out of the running. This does not mean that they will not make an impact on the semi-finals any more. In fact, they are even more dangerous now because they have nothing to lose, but could still spoil the party for some semi-final hopefuls.

The Deccan Chargers had a very strong batting line-up, and even though their bowling was their weaker suit, it was more than compensated by the team's hard hitting ability. Unfortunately, they were not able to win at regular intervals and the pressure got to the players. Fortunately, we were able to break the chain of losses quickly, and for that I would also like to mention the role played by our franchisee.

Having had a long association with cricket, they knew that in this sport winning and losing are part of the game, and they were more interested in the effort than in the result. There was no pressure, subtle or obvious exerted on us, and we were allowed to play our natural game.