We should have bowled more slower balls: Aniket

Aniket Choudhary had begun his spell with a wicket off the first ball of Mumbai Indians’ chase and he had done well to bring the target to 25 off 13 by conceding just five off five in the 18th over. Things, however, changed drastically in the last ball.

The strapping pacer bowled a wide and before bowling the resultant extra delivery, he had a brief discussion with AB de Villiers who apparently asked him to bowl faster one. Until then Choudhary had done well, executing his slower ones to perfection as Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya struggled to put the ball away. Heeding de Villiers’ advice, Choudhary bowled a short one on the middle and Hardik essayed full-blooded pull over mid-wicket for six. The equation became 18 off 12 which Mumbai achieved to consign Royal Challengers Bangalore to another defeat here on Monday. 
        
The six left skipper Virat Kohli livid who called the bowler and admonished him.

“In the last training session, I was practicing with AB and he said I was bowling really well and that it didn’t matter what happened in the last game,” Choudhary gave a brief introduction when asked about his mid-field discussion with de Villiers before that ball. “It doesn’t mean you didn’t bowl well when things don’t go your way. In this match also, he was backing me from the first ball. As far as the last ball is concerned, I was wondering whether to bowl him (Hardik) the slower one or the fast one because it was a match-changing point.

“So I went to and asked him ‘what should I bowl?’ And he said ‘maybe he is ready for the slower one, so I think you should go with the hard length.’ And when someone as great as AB tells you do to something; such a world class player and if he is giving you a suggestion, it’s very hard to go against it. And I thought he was right. And Virat wasn’t happy with what I bowled. He thought I did the wrong thing and that I should have bowled full and slow,” he explained.

The Rajasthan pacer didn’t agree that the target was too small given the nature of the wicket. “I don’t think so. We batted first and we understood how it behaved. I think if we had bowled more slower balls, we could have stopped them from getting the target. It was a decent wicket, but we bowled a few bad balls here and there. As I said, we should have bowled more of the slower stuff.”