'Credit to be given to bowlers & Curran for bringing PBKS back in match', Singh

Leftarm pacer Arshdeep Singh credited his fellow teammates and allrounder Sam Curran for guiding the team to victory in their opening match of the IPL 2024 The Punjab Kings secured a fourwicket win over Delhi Capitals in their opening match of the IPL 2024 campaignPunjab bowled exceptionally well to keep Delhi at 137 runs before Abhishek Porel showcased his skills with the bat The impact player struck 4 fours and 2 sixes He played an unbeaten knock of 32 runs in just 10 deliveries Porel accumulated 25 runs in the last over of the first innings taking Delhi to 174 runsThough Kuldeep Yadav looked scary Curran and Livingstone made a partnership of 67 runs in just 42 deliveries Though Curran fell for 63 off 47 balls in the last over Livingstone finished the match in style with a massive sixover deep midwicket to help PBKS win with four balls to spareldquoCredit will be given to both bowlers and Sam Curran for the win as they brought us back from a situation where the momentum was with the opposition team In the start a good total was there for them in the powerplay and with 100 in 112 overs the chat was that momentum can swing anytime in the matchrdquoAlso Read IPL 2024 Dinesh Karthik pleased to get crucial runs despite early fall of wicketsldquoOur intent was to how you keep yourself stable irrespective of whether runs are being hit or wickets are being taken T20 cricket is a game of momentum so a lot of credit goes to bowlers for putting us back in the game and also to Sam for playing such a good inningsrdquo said Arshdeep after the game endedIn the initial phase of the match Arshdeep was wicketless The pacer made a comeback by dismissing Mitchell Marsh and Sumit Kumar as he registered two wickets for 28 runs in his fourover spell ldquoWe had a nets practice here and did our match stimulations so our endeavour was that with the way wicket was playing the plan was to utilise the square boundariesrdquoldquoWhen the batters are on a runmaking spree then they aim towards yorkers to save themselves The plan was to use short balls as the square boundaries were big and bring the variations into the equation more The main motive was also to remain calm under pressure as you will be hit for runs in this formatrdquo said Arshdeep on his bowling performanceAlso Read Right from the 17th over I had butterflies in the stomach Shreyas IyerAsked about his thoughts on the two bouncers in an overrule Arshdeep felt it was nice Still he explained how it also means the bowlers need to work harder to be more so that they donrsquot come off as predictable while bowling to the batters with square boundary dimensions also adding to the challengeldquoItrsquos a nice rule to bowl two bouncers in an over But not overuse it to keep the batter guessing as itrsquos the main thing in this format You have to make sure they donrsquot know which ball is coming So just mix it up nicely and see whatrsquos working for you on that given dayldquoMost of the times bowling bouncers depends on the dimensions of the ground Like the square boundaries at Mullanpur were decent so we could the quicker and slower bouncers But I feel the slower one is more effective because the batter has to generate all the power and thatrsquos why we did use a lot of themrdquoldquoWe had a chat in the meeting as well that no overusing of it as it gives them more cushion Even the batter is waiting for that ball as there are very less chances of being out on it I feel the main motive of a slower bouncer is it should die on the batter like you have to make sure the trajectory is dying on the batter and not coming fast at them so itrsquos tough for them to generate power at the shotrdquoldquoYou have to keep in mind the height as well ndash it shouldnrsquot be either wide or at shoulder height for them to hit it So itrsquos about just repeating it more at the practice and then make sure to know how much the wicket is going to bounce and where you have to pitch it on the match dayrdquoArshdeep also appreciated Abhishek Porels heroics in the final over of Harshal Patel ldquoHarshal bhairsquos experience helps him know what will work for him on that given day on that wicket and hersquos putting in the hard yards Even in the first three overs he was bowling well and credit goes to Abishek Porel as well He played really nice shotsrdquoWith IANS Inputs