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'He does suit the conditions, but it's the simplicity of the plan that we put in place, and he executed that beautifully today.'
Chennai Super Kings bowling consultant Eric Simons heaped praise on Bangladesh pacer Mustafizur Rahman for executing plans perfectly and setting up a comfortable six-wicket victory over Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the IPL 2024 opener in Chennai on Friday.
'Fizz', as he is known in the cricketing fraternity, wouldn't have made it to the first eleven had Matheesha Pathirana been fit to represent the 'Yellow Brigade'. Introduced in the Powerplay to check the rampaging Faf du Plessis (35 off 23), he did well to gauge the pace of the track and bowled between the 7-8 metre length to extract enough bounce and get a couple of dismissals.
He rattled the RCB top-order, dismissing Virat Kohli (21), skipper Faf du Plessis (35) and Rajat Patidar (0) -- and also got rid of Cameron Green (18) -- for his best ever IPL figures of 4 for 29 in four overs as CSK restricted RCB to 173 for 6.
"We always wanted to look at the conditions and the balance of the side. He (Mustafizur) does suit the conditions, but it's the simplicity of the plan that we put in place, and he executed that beautifully today (Friday)," said Simons at the post-match press conference.
RCB were reeling at 78 for 5 before the pair of Anuj Rawat (48) and Dinesh Karthik (38 not out) added 95 crucial runs to propel them to a healthy total.
Asked why spinner Rachin Ravindra was not introduced to arrest the flow of runs, Simons felt it was a bit late to hand over the ball to him.
"They were 78-5, and the spinners had done a good job. Two overs went for a few, and the momentum shifted, and it was probably late at that stage to throw the ball to him in that situation. From what we have seen in the nets, he can certainly bowl; but at the right time," the South African said.
Simons stressed on the importance of controlling the powerplay and death overs but credited the RCB batters for dictating terms in the fag end of their innings.
"From the seam perspective, to control the Powerplay and to control the death is a very important aspect of the game. We have a lot of discussions not just about skills but educating ourselves and the bowlers about how to use variations, field placements and tactics.
"DK (Dinesh Karthik) is a daunting guy to bowl to in those moments. Some credit must go to the (RCB) batters as to how they manipulated us. We will then look at it, did we allow to happen too much?
"My question is who's controlling the tactics? Are the (opposition) batters dictating it to us, or vice versa? And you walk away from today thinking that we allowed the batters dictating too much.
"We will review some of those match footage and have discussions about it, along with (Dwayne) Bravo, who has a lot of knowledge."
Chasing 174, CSK’s batters looked aggressive. Simons said they wanted the batters to play with freedom.
"The important thing in competitions like this is for the batters to be themselves, and that's the way they like to play, with freedom and be intimidating to the opposition. The batting line-up that we have gives us confidence as to what we can do.
"(Ajinkya) Rahane will be aggressive, but he will be different to Dube. So you go and play your game with freedom and expression."