India seamer Munaf Patel yesterday denied he was nervous bowling the final over against England and said that conceding runs at the death was part of the game
Munaf Patel tells MiD DAY he was confident when Dhoni put faith in him to bowl the final over vs England
India seamer Munaf Patel yesterday denied he was nervous bowling the final over against England and said that conceding runs at the death was part of the game.
"Main nervous nahin tha (I wasn't nervous). What was the need to get nervous? I am a performer. It happens some times," Munaf told MiD DAY.
The right-arm pacer from Gujarat gave away 13 runs off the last over as England tied India's total of 338.
"These things are part and parcel of the game. In the last over, I wanted to save runs but I couldn't," he said, his voice betraying a sense of disappointment.
However, missing out on a win didn't seem to hurt the team too badly.
"No body can win six out of six games. Every time you win, the pressure and expectations build up. No one would love that kind of pressure building in such a tournament like World Cup. So, there is no problem at all. At least we got one point," a senior player said.
The view was endorsed by the team's mental conditioning coach, Paddy Upton, who said the players should aim to peak at the right time. "The graph shouldn't go high. It should be like a sine curve. After the group stage, it will start to pick up," he said.
