Praveen Kumar has been a success story for Bangalore Royal Challengers in the IPL. The Uttar Pradesh lad has taken six wickets so far from as many matches, giving excellent support to leading pacers Zaheer Khan and Dale Steyn.

Praveen marked out his strategy in the Twenty20 format.  “Our aim is to give away only 5-6 runs per over. It is tough, as sometimes even good balls can go for runs in this format. The only way ahead of us is to employ as many variations as possible, like the slower ball, yorker etc to take the batsmen by surprise. If you bowl in the right areas, you can get wickets in any format,” Praveen said here on Sunday.

The Bangalore team has a good mix of Indian and overseas pacemen, but Praveen rated Zaheer as his source of inspiration. “Steyn and (Jacques) Kallis se itni baat nahi hui hei (I have not spoken to Steyn and Kallis that much). But Zaheer bhai has been a great help and he has given me a lot of tips,” he said.

The Royal Challengers had a terrible start to their IPL campaign, losing four of their first five matches. But Praveen said the team was confident of turning it around. “We did not have a great start in the tournament, losing some early matches. What pained us more was that a couple of them were close games that we could have won. We had fallen short in some areas in those matches. But none of the boys were dejected or thought this was the end of it. We were confident that the tide will change,” he said.

Perhaps, the Royal Challengers’ narrow three-run victory of Deccan Chargers could signal the reversal of the trend. The lanky right-armer grabbed three for 23 from his four overs to play a crucial role in the local outfit’s win, also claiming the man of the match award.

“It was a happy moment for me to bag the man of the match award. T20 has often been viewed as a batsman’s game, but there are occasions when the bowlers come to the fore. I hope I can further contribute to the team’s cause in the coming matches,” he said. The Challengers too will be pinning hopes on Praveen to add further steam to their IPL charge.