Kolkata: Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir is happy with wicket at Eden Gardens. Gambhir put an end to the controversy surfacing due to the nature of 22 yards at Eden Gardens. The Knight Riders captain is fine with the Eden strip. According to Gambhir, “I am fine with it. If you want to win a tournament, you can’t be dependent on surfaces. If you want to be a champion side in the tournament, you should be able to adapt to every situation and every condition. If we are looking to win this tournament, our spinners and bowlers need to bowl on any kind of surface that is given to us. We have done reasonably well in this tournament and been pretty much consistent. We have not demanded or anything for anything, whatever wicket we get we should be up for it and we are ready for it.”
A lot has been spoken about the surface at Eden Gardens in recent times. The complaint about the Eden strip was it has so far behaved unlike the manner which one associates with the wicket here. The slow low turn was not evident in the matches played so far at the venue. The home team spinners have so far failed to extract the bounce and turn they would have liked. Gambhir himself is also surprised to see the wicket behave so far.
“It is little weird. You are expecting the wickets to be tired especially after the T20 World cup but apparently the wickets have been very good. It is tough for the bowlers and normally it has been very good wickets to bat on. I am always a believer of giving home advantage to the home side. There is nothing wrong in it. If you go and play in places like Australia or South Africa, there will always be bounce on those kinds of wickets. If you come to India and play, you expect wickets to turn and there is nothing wrong in it irrespective of what the format is. In IPL the wickets have been really good whether you see the Eden Gardens or Bengaluru or Mumbai.”
Recently there was a controversy regarding Ravichandran Ashwin not being given his full quota of overs by Dhoni. Gambhir, though see nothing wrong in a captain not giving a particular bowler the full quota. According to him, “Sometimes if you don’t have that much of confidence in your spinners you might not even end up bowling their four overs. Amit Mishra got two wickets in the previous game but did not bowl his quota of four overs. It really depends on the captain as to how much confidence he has on his spinners. I have always believed a quality spinner does not need a surface. A quality spinner will do well irrespective of what the surface is. If you have quality in your ranks, surfaces are out of question.”
On being asked whether the Knight Riders were peaking at the right time or not, Gambhir said, “We lost the last game so we don’t know if we actually peaked or not. There were good signs that people were getting runs, bowlers were performing well but we need to do it together. If you want to win a game of cricket, not one or two individuals can end up winning you a game of cricket. Obviously the batsmen need to do well and the bowlers need to complement them with the fielders complementing both the departments. If you want to win a game of cricket, all the three departments need to click. It is good when there are such performances but I don’t give too much importance to performances which doesn’t end up winning you a game of cricket. For me every run that you score that can help your team win is far more valuable than scoring big runs and end up on the losing side. ”
Rising Pune Supergiants will look to unsettle the hosts with their performance. The fact that Pune is already out of contention for the play offs; they can spoil the party of others by causing an upset or two. Gambhir is wary of the opponents tomorrow. “This is a format where you expect people to come and play freely. Whether they have got anything to lose or not doesn’t make a difference because we need to go out there and play good cricket and that is all that matters. We need to do well in all the three departments. Rising Pune Supergiants are a quality side but they have not played that well in the tournament, but these things can happen. They have got lot to lose as well. No one wants to turn out on the field and get back to a losing dressing room. It is going to be even stevens and hopefully we can play our best cricket tomorrow.”
Lastly speaking on the home advantage Gambhir said, “Obviously home advantage does make a difference especially with the crowd’s support. When the crowd is in your favour and cheering for you, it does give you an extra boost that you are looking for; especially when you play in places like Eden Gardens or Mumbai or Bengaluru when the crowd is loyal to the teams. They are good batting wickets generally. When you play games in Bengaluru, Pune or Mumbai, the totals do change because you can’t suddenly expect to score 180 or 190 at every venue. Sometimes on a wicket, 160 could be a very good total. Home advantage does not make that much of a difference but you need to be a bit cleverer in judging what a good total is on that particular wicket.”