Raina all praise for CSK bowlers

A humid Wednesday in Mumbai proved one of the better days in Suresh Raina’s life. First he was appointed India’s skipper for a short tour to Bangladesh and then a few hours later played a match-winning innings for Chennai Super Kings against Mumbai Indians.

After helping Super Kings stay in the race for a berth in the IPL-VII final with an unbeaten 54, Raina spoke to media.

Excerpts:

On his own performance:

We bowled really well: (Ashish) Nehra, Ishwar (Pandey), (Ravichandran) Ashwin, (Ravindra) Jadeja … I thought we would be chasing 200. In between we got wickets. The bowlers set the tone for us. Then we had two very good partnerships.

On his strategy:

The pitch was really good for batting. There was a bit of spin. But I backed my areas – cover and mid-wicket, and in between that I ran hard. In batting you have to keep improving your shots. Over the years I’ve learned a lot from Mike Hussey, Matthew Hayden, Stephen Fleming … playing with them over seven years has helped. And then there’s MS (Dhoni). When you have players like this in your team, you tend to learn a lot.

On CSK chasing well:

The important thing is that we have handled pressure really well, over the last seven years. When you know you have a captain like Dhoni and a coach like Fleming, it helps.

On CSK’s catching:

Ishwar took a brilliant catch. Corey Anderson was going really well and he had scored 90-odd in the previous game. That breakthrough was crucial. We took 2-3 brilliant catches and when you do that, you win games. That’s why they could not score over 180.

On the match against Kings XI:

They have no time to think, as they will be arriving only a day before the match. We have one more day to analyse our strength, our game. Whoever panics is going to lose the battle. We have to go out there and express ourselves, and we need to look to start strongly as we have been doing in this tournament.

On leading India in Ban­gla­desh:

I think the captain is not so important but if you have good players you can win mat­ches. I am focusing now on the next two games (of IPL) and then I will have 10-12 days on how to plan things.

I hope I will sit with MS (Dhoni) and Flem (Stephen Fleming) on how to plan. It will be a good opportunity for me before the England ODI series. I hope if I do well (in Bangladesh) then I will go and perform well in the England one-day series also.