Colombo, Sep 29: Shane Watson and David Warner mesmerised the spectators with their batting performance as they took the game away from India at the R. Premadasa Stadium here. The Australian openers took on India’s main bowlers head on as they helped chase down the 141-run target comfortably.
Watson, who earned a third consecutive Man-of-the-Match award in the 2012 ICC World T20, spoke about his role in the team and his batting while talking to the media after the match.
Excerpts:
On Australia’s performance
We knew exactly what we had to do as individuals, but also within the team to fill our role and be at our best. We know that if we do that as a team, we are going to be very hard to beat on our day. We have started very well, but we have got to continue to play extremely well.
We know how important Dave [David Warner] and my role at the top of the order to be able to set a platform for the rest of the batting unit, and so far it has worked. We hope we continue to do that for a few more games anyway.
On India packing its side with three spinners but struggling with the ball
What I do know is that there was a bit of rain towards the end of our bowling innings. We knew that the ball was going to get wet for us anyway. But in the end you have to make do with what conditions are given to you.
India did go in with three frontline spinners and there was always a chance that there was going to be some rain around as there has been in the tournament so far, especially here in Colombo. In the end, you have to make the most of the situations and the conditions you have.
On negotiating India's bowling
We knew that India were going to hit us with quite a bit of spin. That is the competitive advantage they have over us but you can also never take for granted Zaheer Khan, especially. He is a very skilled new ball bowler.
On his batting
I think I was lucky in a way that I have been able to play to play all their spinners through the IPL over the last few years so I know how they are going to bowl to me and how they are going to try to get me out. It was nice that it worked out well for me tonight, but those guys in the past have got me out quite a few times.
On the chase
If you are chasing a lot bigger total than 140, you do have to take a lot more risks to the spinners and they are high quality, world-class spinners that we are playing against, especially [Ravichandran] Ashwin and Harbhajan [Singh], who I have played a lot before. We knew that that was going to be a really big challenge and it just worked out that we got a few boundaries away early.
We were able to try and make the most of those five to six overs. It also helps having Dave, being the quality of player he is, but also a left-hander.
On being ranked as low as No.9 at the start of the tournament
There’s no doubt about that, especially being ranked where we were at the start of the tournament. We were No. 9 or No. 10 or something… very poorly ranked. The reason was that our T20 cricket was very inconsistent. We played some very good games and we played some poor games as well.
