Moeen Ali is set to leave for England to prepare for the World Cup. (Source: PTI)RCB’s Moeen Ali, who is set to leave for England to prepare for the World Cup, Tuesday said leaving the IPL midway is a shame, especially when there is a slim chance of his team making it into the semi-final if they win all the remaining games.
However, he would keep an eye on how RCB is shaping up, Ali said, getting ready for the RCB-Kings XI Punjab clash at the Chinnaswamy stadium here Wednesday.
“It’s not ideal. I think it’s worse when there are three games to go. If there were 6, 7 games, it was a little more understandable.
And knowing that there could be a chance of going through if we win all our games, then you miss out on a potential semifinal and stuff, but I will definitely keep an eye out and see how they are going, hoping that we are winning all our games,” he told reporters on the eve of the match.
Replying to a query, Ali said IPL has helped him prepare well for the world cup as it gave him an opportunity to rub shoulders with foreign players and get enough time at the nets to improve skills.
Asked if he preferred batting up the order for RCB, Ali said this would not bother him much.
“We tried left and right combination to make it tougher for the bowlers and fielders. … I may prefer to come in as early as possible. I am not to worried until the team is winning and I am doing okay,” he said.
On RCB depending too much on AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli, Ali said it was very difficult for a team to rely on two batsmen.
“… My job is to come and score some runs as quickly as AB and Virat and take the game away from the opposition, if one of them fails to get a start,” he said.
Ali said Dale Steyn’s presence has strengthened RCB’s bowling attack as the South African express has picked wickets in the first four overs, which helps a team win most of the time, Ali said.
“Dale has been a huge impact. We did not take wickets in the powerplays. If you take four wickets in powerplays, most of the time you win matches.
He has been a class act. The way he swings the ball is a brave thing to do. Probably that has been the missing factor, which cost us games,” he said.
Asked if he needs to bowl more, Ali said as long as the team was winning, these things did not worry him much.
“It is a small ground here. I observed in the last match that seamers were hard to score off.
I really did not get the window to bowl against KKR when Andre Russel came in. But, as long as you are winning, you really don’t worry too much,” he said.
Gayle, Rahul set games up for us: Mayank Agarwal
Kings XI Punjab’s Mayank Agarwal is full of admiration for destructive openers Chris Gayle and K L Rahul as they set the game up for their team.
“It is amazing to have both of them at the top of the order. … they are almost always setting it up for us.
You just have to go out there, execute plans. It is good if your openers can go out there and get runs, nothing like it,” he told reporters Tuesday on the eve of the RCB-Kings XI Punjab clash here.
Asked about batting with Gayle, Agarwal said it makes batting easier for him as the opposition would focus on getting the West Indian star out.
Agarwal said Punjab needs to win three games out of four and strive to make it to the play-offs.
“The thought process is very simple for us in the side. We have got to win three games out of four and we have got to take one game at a time, and going out there and winning those games.
As a team, if we can get momentum now and start winning now, back-to-back games, nothing like it going into the play-offs with some momentum,” he said.
On Ravichandran Ashwin as captain, Agarwal said he spends a lot of time in thinking, planning and going about understanding each and every player.
“He is also a great communicator and goes out to every player with inputs,” the dashing batsman said.
On Mujeeb-ur-Rehman’s availability, he said a clear picture would be available by tomorrow.
