As K.V. Sasikanth bagged the wicket of Himanshu Mantri shortly after lunch on Friday, the Andhra players rallied around him to celebrate the big wicket.
Over the next hour or so, every time Sasikanth bowled, the teammates whistled and applauded to ensure that he remained motivated. And, as the 28-year-old fast bowler claimed a four-for to rip apart Madhya Pradesh middle-order, the cheers continued.
“It was all part of the plan,” Sasikanth told Sportstar after the day’s play. “On the field, we spoke about little things - like cheering for each other after every good ball. Since I was getting wickets, the teammates wanted to create that hype around me and that sort of helped me get the best out of myself,” he said with a smile.
Despite dominating the first session, Madhya Pradesh batting line-up collapsed like a pack of cards with Sasikanth and K Nithish Kumar Reddy breathing fire. “We kept targets per session - like giving away just 60 runs in 30 overs and things like that. Those goals helped everyone to be attentive and work towards achieving them,” Sasikanth said.
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“In the first session, a few runs went through the edges, but we bowled decently. After lunch, we had to go all out, and we bowled in good areas. As a team, we believed that it’s okay if one session went their way, the other would come to us, and that approach worked,” he added.
Andhra reached the quarterfinals of the tournament last year, but ended up losing to Madhya Pradesh by five wickets. This time, in a re-match of sorts, Sasikanth and Nithish decided to bowl in the right areas and that seemed to work.
“We played a few quarterfinals before, so we were underdogs and there was nothing to lose. So, we took it like just another game and our aim was to keep doing what we did in the group league and that helped,” he said.
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