Raipur: Right-handed batter Ruturaj Gaikwad credited Virat Kohli for guiding him fantastically on his way to hitting his maiden ODI century in the second game against South Africa, adding that their 195 run stand was a “wonderful partnership”.
At the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium in Raipur on Wednesday, Gaikwad scored 105 off 83 balls, laced with 12 fours and two sixes, at a strike-rate of 126.51. He reached his fifty off 52 balls, before accelerating in superb fashion to get his first ODI century in just 77 deliveries.
“Obviously a dream to bat with him and have a wonderful partnership. He helped me a lot throughout the middle about how to access gaps, what lengths the bowler might be bowling and how you can adjust your technique and score some runs by playing less dot balls. So definitely very helpful and good learning for me.”
“We had set small targets and we just thought that you know 5 overs we have to achieve this, 5 overs we have to achieve this and once we felt that we were really comfortable in the middle and there came a phase where the ball wasn’t doing much and it was coming really nicely to the bat and I just said that I will back my instincts whatever it is and you know let’s see how it goes on,” said Gaikwad to broadcasters in a mid-innings chat.
Asked on how he felt the conditions were out on the field, Gaikwad said, “Last game I was really gutted to miss out on a knock. It was a really good wicket and the conditions were suited for me, could have easily scored a few runs. So really gutted last game and thankfully it came out really well today.”
“Today it was more suitable for me, I went out to bat around the 11th over, and I told myself to approach it as if I was already 25 or 30 balls in after powerplay and bat accordingly, look to rotate strike. Until 15-20 overs it was slightly two-paced but after that it got better and we worked on that.”
He signed off by saying they had a target of reaching 350 and felt grateful about it. “But definitely after a stage we were thinking about something around 350, thankfully we got that score.”
“Definitely good score but as we were here yesterday, I think there is a lot of dew, hopefully there will be less amount of dew tonight but definitely chasing 350-plus will be really tough.”
(IANS)
