Mohammed Shami is the man of the match for me for his super over last night: Chris Gayle
KXIP batsman Chris Gayle was full of praise for Mohammed Shami’s spectacular super over against Mumbai Indians in the IPL last night, in which he kept the duo of Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma down to 5 runs out of a target of six.
“Shami is the man of the match for me,” Gayle told Mayank Agarwal on IPLT20.com. “To defend six runs against Rohit and de Kock, that’s fantastic. That’s a great job. I have faced you in the nets and I know that you can nail those yorkers, and nail them well. Today he came and delivered and brought it home for us.”
Chris Gayle and Mayank Agarwal chased down a target of 12 in a second super over in the IPL match against Mumbai Indians last night
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Shami’s 5-run super over meant that the scores were tied after the two teams played out an over each after the main game ended in a tie as well. Therefore, the two teams played out another super over, in which Gayle and Agarwal chased down 11 with two balls remaining. Chris Jordan, who bowled the super over for KXIP, was also full of praise for his fellow speedster.
He said in the press conference, “The way we bowled those two super overs, shows the team’s character. The way Shami bowled that over to defend 6 runs, that effort was tremendous. The energy in our team is unbelievable. We have some tremendous players in our team.
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“And we still have Maxwell to come off, that’s very encouraging. It was a team effort today. Young Arshdeep has been bowling well for us since he has come into the team. He probably missed the yorker by a few inches, but the strength and class of Pollard came through on those occasions. It’s an area we can improve.”
Shami himself spoke about his ploy to nail yorker after yorker in the super over, saying that the trick was to not think too much and not too far ahead.
“It was very difficult,” he said. “When you get 15-17 runs to defend in the Super Over, it’s a different matter altogether. You believe at the back of your mind that you can do it. But when the margin error is so less, you focus on what you can do best. I believe a lot in myself. When I was going back on the top of my mark every ball, I was saying to myself, ‘This last ball was great. The next ball will be great too’. I repeated that six times.”