“Anything’s possible, no doubt about that,” the Deccan Chargers skipper said on Wednesday afternoon. “I don’t subscribe to the myth that you have to lose a game eventually. After five losses in a row, we reached a point where we knew we couldn’t afford to lose another game. It freed us up, we knew what our job was and we knew we couldn’t lose another game if we are to stay in the tournament. So it’s business as usual for us!”
Not worried
Gilchrist’s form with the bat has been less than trail-blazing. “I am not losing sleep over it,” he laughed. “It’s about leading the team and giving the franchise a chance of winning the tournament. I’ve said all along that I would love to score more runs, but not everyone scores runs all the time. I’ve had two really good years. I’ve got the team’s interest at heart when I’ve gone to bat, which is what I’ve done always in my career. I’ll continue to do that and I won’t second guess that. But if I don’t score runs, I’m backing one of my team-mates to chip in and do it, see where else I can contribute.” So, what chance then of seeing the squash ball come out of cold storage? “I haven’t been using the squash ball in any IPL, I haven’t used it since I retired from international cricket,” he replied. “I didn’t find it all that beneficial last year, and I had a successful tournament. Mind you, you never know!,” former Australian stumper said.
Refusing to read too much into their twin wins over the Super Kings this year, Gilchrist observed, “Chennai is one of the strongest squads in the tournament. You look at their bench, who are not playing and you realise how good the team is. We’ve been fortunate to get a couple of good results against them, it’s a nice positive feeling but it doesn’t count for much.”
After an indifferent start, Australia needed seven straight wins to capture the 1999 World Cup. Did he draw a parallel with the Chargers’ predicament? “I haven’t brought my references to the similarities but there is a lot of synergy there,” he said. “There’s seven games that we had to go undefeated in England. We won five, then had a tie and won the last game, so seven is the number, but this time we have to look at six at first.”
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