JOIN US“I’ve always played my cricket that way. I remember telling Mahela after he edged one ‘I don’t think you are good enough to play me’. You can say that it kind of backfired because the class player that he is, he went on to make a great hundred. But that was a really good contest,” Sreesanth said of his duel with his Kochi Tuskers Kerala captain.
“I hope he will continue that form for us in the IPL as well. I think Mahela is a great leader and I’m really looking forward to working with him and hearing his inputs into the game,” he added on the sidelines of an event here on Wednesday night, where the Kerala speedester was felicitated by the Gene Research Foundation and Agarwal Hospitals on World Health Day.
Sreesanth, picked up by his home-town team for a little over Rs 4 crore, said he was really looking forward to being a part of the team.
“I haven’t met my team-mates as yet, but I’m reaching Kochi on Thursday and really looking forward to meeting the players and the coaching staff. I think we have a really good squad, a squad that is capable of going the whole way.”
Former coach Gary Kirsten’s influence on the whole Indian team has been well chronicled and Sreesanth was no different when he spoke about the affable South African.
“I think Gary is the best coach by far that we have had. I still remember the first thing he told us when he joined us in Australia in 2008. He told the whole team ‘I’m here to make you the number one Test team in the world and to make you win the World Cup’. Not just that, he made each and every indidual believe in it. That was what made him great.”
An effective bowler in the longer version of the game, Sreesanth has struggled in the one-day format and said he was keen to set that record straight.
“I heard that Gary said it would be a total waste of talent if I did not step up another level and do well in the shorter version of the game as well. That is going to be my motivation in this IPL,” Sreesanth promised. “To prove to myself and everyone else that I can be a really productive bowler in the one-day game. It is great that I get to do that for my hometown team. We are going to be playing Royal Challengers Bangalore first, and it is going to be a tough challenge. But I am really confident.
“I’m telling you that the Kochi Tuskers will win the IPL this year. We will come. We will see. And we will conquer!”