'We turned it around with our bowling and fielding'

“It’s exciting,” said the Aussie, named the man of the match for his sensational burst of four for 13. “In Twenty20s, you think of getting one or two wickets. To get four twice is a great achievement for me. It just comes down to enjoying my cricket, it’s brilliant.”

Bollinger credited offie R Ashwin with going an excellent job with the new ball. “The combination with Ashwin has been brilliant,” added the left-arm quick. “He has bowled beautifully and given us great starts. It’s always good to get one or two wickets early on.”

The surface, Bollinger noted, wasn’t the worst. “It was a good wicket, there was some spongy bounce,” he observed. “They bowled well and we played some bad strokes too. When it was our turn to bowl, it played a bit slow. We turned it around with our bowling and our fielding. We enjoyed being out there in the middle, and that worked in our favour.”

Looking ahead to the final against the Mumbai Indians, Bollinger said, “We will back ourselves. It’s an important game for us, we hope to put it across them as we did before.”

The Chargers needed five straight wins to reach the semifinals, but a sixth consecutive triumph proved well beyond them. “It is disappointing. We were in the game for a long time with the ball, but it was not easy to chase any total on this surface,” admitted skipper Adam Gilchrist.

“The wicket was tired and slow even though not a lot of cricket has been played on it. It wasn’t a big turner.”

Gilchrist conceded that it will take some effort for the team to get itself up for Saturday’s third-place play-off against the Royal Challengers. “But we have to pick ourselves up,” he added. “There is a lot at stake. We enjoyed the Champions League last year, and we would like to come back and play in that competition this year too.”

The Chargers scored only 19 without loss in the first five overs. “The idea was to keep wickets in hand and lay the foundation. Ashwin has been excellent with the new ball throughout the tournament and it would have been a big risk trying to go after him,” Gilchrist said by way of explanation for the go-slow tactics up front.