Uthappa keen to excel against 'home' team Bangalore

Pune Warriors batsman Robin keen to excel against his 'home' team, Bangalore today

Robin Uthappa has been 'desperately' looking forward to today's fixture in which Royal Challengers Bangalore host Pune Warriors at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Uthappa returns to his hometown for the first time since heading over to the Subrata Roy-owned franchise at the start of the fourth Indian Premier League (IPL).



"Honestly, I have mixed feeling about coming back to Bangalore. It'll be rather strange to play against a Bangalore-based side, at the ground where I have played most of my cricket, but it's something that I am looking forward to," Uthappa told MiD DAY just minutes after the Warriors arrived in the city yesterday.

Pune had lost to Chennai Super Kings in their own backyard on Wednesday evening. "I love playing my cricket in Bangalore. This is the best city in the world to play cricket because the atmosphere is unbelievable and something that you can't experience anywhere else. Coming back home has a different meaning this time around, but it's going to be awesome nonetheless," said Uthappa.

The 25-year-old felt that the Bangalore crowd was a matured one, and would have its loyalties in place. "When I played for Mumbai Indians (in the first season), the fans were really sweet. The people here are well versed with the sport and understand franchise cricket. They will have their loyalties in place, no doubt about that. I am sure that Rahul (Dravid) also must have been cheered when he came here as a part of Rajasthan (Royals) a few weeks back," said Uthappa.

Persistent showers in the Garden City ruled out any possibility of a practice session for either side. Having lost four games on the trot, it's almost a must-win scenario for Yuvraj Singh's Warriors.

"Not trying to defend our team, but we have been losing some very close games. Most of those games could have gone our way, we are just falling short of some runs," said Uthappa. "Batting has definitely been the reason for the losses and I am confident that we will rectify that soon. It takes just one win to get back the momentum."

Uthappa played a key role in Bangalore qualifying to the final and semi-final stages in the previous two IPL editions and hoped to do the same for Pune.

"I want to take inspiration from my performance (with Bangalore) in South Africa two seasons back. I remember we were down and out ufffd and it just took a couple of wins to get the momentum back," he said.