TNPL 2016: Baba Aparajith's wicket was the turning point, says Malolan Rangarajan

Turning point of the game?
The loss of Baba Aparajith’s wicket was the turning point, no doubts about that. But we made a good comeback after we lost four wickets for 90 odd runs. Hari Nishaanth and Lakshmi Narayanan stitched a good partnership between them. Three early wickets in the Power Play to Bala Bhai (L Balaji) was crucial.
 
You were ahead of them till the 15th over of their innings?
Yes, we made a decent comeback. We gave them too many runs in the first six overs, then the spinners controlled the score well. In the match against Madurai Super Giants, we defended well because we executed the plans. Today, we couldn’t do that. We gave away too many boundaries in the death overs. I see this as a learning experience for the bowlers. Need to give credit to Abhinav Mukund who hit loose deliveries for boundary. Even Anand (Subramanium) hit a crucial six.
 
Was the wicket behaving a little two-paced? What do you think about the bounce on the pitch today?
L Balaji and Aswin Crist are six and a half feet tall and that explains how well they can use the bounce. Our bowlers are hardly six feet and for their height, they got considerable bounce. Jagannath Sinivas bowled a beautiful spell. In comparison, we are a bit slower, but we have our own plus points as well.
The wicket was two-paced, no doubts about it. You could see that from Kavin’s wicket (bowled by Balaji). It was a good cricketing wicket and we came back well also to defend our target.
 
140 was a decent score..
150 would have been an easily defendable score. It was all about execution. We had our plans set for each batsman and bowler. It was about the full tosses, which they capitalised on well.
 
About Balaji’s spell..
It is a big thing if you pick five wickets even in a four-day game, bowling 25 overs. It is no ordinary feat to bowl four overs and pick five wickets. He picked three wickets in the first six overs, which caused a dent for us initially. Then he came back and picked two more wickets in over which was like a speed-breaker for us. If Bala Bhai hadn’t bowled, we might have got 160.