'Key was to hit the right areas'

R Vinay Kumar is the spine of Karnataka’s bowling unit and he proved that yet again with a brilliant display of intelligent pace bowling at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Monday.

On a wicket which was beginning to look less like the one that was seen on the opening two days of the four-day match against Odisha, the India paceman’s belief in his craft came through for Karnataka.

Keeping it tight while the rest of the pace battery struggled to find their footing, the 28-year-old tormented Odisha’s bowlers with figures of seven for 58 from 21 overs, returning a match haul of 10 wickets.

“Most of the time I was looking to make the batsmen play and I was not thinking about wickets. I just focussed on bowling in the right areas,” said the Davanagere bowler.
“The ball was moving initially but most of all, it was clear in my mind that I was supposed to make them play.”

Vinay, who has played one Test and 22 one-dayers for India, credited his stint with the national team as the reason behind his increasingly impressive performances this season.

“After playing for India it is much easier for me to play at this level. The wicket will come if you don’t go after it. If you keep bowling in the right areas, you will definitely get some wickets,” explained Vinay.

“I beat the bat on a lot of occasions yesterday and today, but the difference from then and now is that, two or three years back I would’ve resorted to experimenting at that stage and possibly gone for more runs. Now I am mature enough to understand the situation and stick to what I can do best.”

Vinay hoped his batsmen will play freely on the final day and also said promoting C M Gautam up the order might be an option.