2017 Duleep Trophy: Wanted to contribute my best with the lower order, says Baba Indrajith
On the first day of the second match of 2017 Duleep Trophy tournament, India Red were in a spot of bother as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals and were reduced to 138/6 against India Blue with just one of their recognised batsmen, Baba Indrajith, left in the hut.
Indrajith took things into his own hands and rescued his team from blushes and took them to a decent position of 291/9 at the end of the day's play by scoring an unbeaten 120 off 181 balls and stitched together an unbroken 86-run partnership for the last wicket.
Sportskeeda caught up with the Tamil Nadu batsman after his stroke-filled knock and he felt the wicket was on the slower side and the ball started to skid when the lights were on. He also credited the lower-order batsmen for giving him some much-needed support and confidence.
"The wicket was a typical day one wicket but I felt it was a bit slower and the ball started to skid at night. Actually, when I went in, I wanted to start normally and play my natural game. But, we kept losing wickets at regular intervals. I was saying to myself that I should try and contribute as much as I can with the lower order. But, after a point of time, they started batting well and that gave me a lot of confidence," he said.
"Siddarth Kaul batted for 44 balls, Basil Thampi got our early and then came Vijay Gohil. He said he can play defence and I was confident that we could stitch together a 20-30 run partnership. I started taking some calculated risks. I started giving him three balls in an over and then didn't worry about giving the strike to him. The partnership went well for us. We should try and extend the partnership on day 2. It's always good to bat out time and score some runs. It will be better if we try and build on our partnership," he added.
After losing Chama Milind off the last ball of the 50th over, Indrajith put on a 36-run partnership off 82 balls along with the number 9 batsman Sid Kaul (13 off 44 balls) and put on 86 runs off 109 for the last wicket with Mumbai spinner Gohil, who is still batting on 22 off 35 balls.
Inder, who remained unbeaten on 120 with the help of 12 fours and two sixes when the stumps were drawn on day 1, will look to extend the partnership with Gohil and score as much as possible on day 2.
For India Blue, Ankit Rajpoot took three wickets apiece while Jaydev Unadkat ended up with two wickets. Blue's captain Suresh Raina will look to dismiss India Red as soon as possible as the wicket is already on the slower side and slow down as the game progresses.