We have our plans for Royal Challengers, says Robin Singh

The former Indian fielding coach said the Indians hadn’t lost any momentum by fielding a second-string squad and going down by nine wickets to the Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday night.

“You got to play your best cricket,” he said on Tuesday night. “In the last game, we wanted to give everybody an opportunity. We could afford to do that. We were looking at a few performances, based on what combination we want to play here. I don’t think that loss will make any difference tomorrow.”

Robin refused to believe his team had an advantage because the semifinals had been shifted to the DY Patil stadium. “This is the sort of tournament where everyone has been beaten at some point of time by some team,” he pointed out. “Everyone has capable players capable of delivering. You have to perform as a team, it’s not a one-man show.

“The semifinal is a knockout game. We beat them in the last game, they won against us in the first. They are a really strong batting side. We have our plans for them, we need to execute those plans, and play good, solid consistent cricket.”

Explaining the rationale behind Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Lasith Malinga and Kieron Pollard not travelling to Kolkata, Robin said, “We needed our main players to rest. Most people have played a lot of cricket, the journey here is quite far. We came back this morning at 4.30, the semis is tomorrow. We thought it was best if they stayed in Mumbai.”

Robin added that teams have arrived better prepared for IPL III.

“Most teams are pretty strong, they are well equipped to chase or bowl the opposition out. Most teams have prepared themselves much better than the past two years. This is my second year with IPL. The first year, when I joined Deccan Chargers, Laxman and I joined the team two days after the South Africa series, so there was  very little time to work with the players even though you know them.

“This year has been different, I spent a lot of time with the players.

“We had a hand in selecting some of the local players. Obviously, the international players were already there. Based on that, we worked out our strategy and what we wanted to do. Our preparation has been good since August.”