Lucknow Super Giants’ opening batter-wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock feels that his former team Mumbai Indians will be extremely desperate to notch up their first win of IPL 2022.
In the afternoon match at the Brabourne Stadium on Saturday, Mumbai would be seeking to end their winless run while Lucknow is looking to bounce back from a narrow loss to Rajasthan Royals.
“Obviously with Mumbai at the moment, I think we will try to get our momentum back after the loss in the last game. We would love to get another win but Mumbai is going to be very desperate for their first win. I know they will come out hard, knowing their couple of boys in the team and I got a feeling that they will come out fighting, which is expected out of Mumbai. Gotta make sure we dig deep and get our chance to try and get a win on top of it,” said de Kock in a pre-match chat with broadcasters Star Sports.
Lucknow is de Kock’s fifth team in the IPL after previously being a part of Sunrisers Hyderabad, Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals), Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Mumbai. He has led two of Lucknow’s wins while chasing against Delhi and Chennai Super Kings, making 80 and 61 respectively.
“It’s been good and the team environment is on a high. We have done really well as a new team this season. It’s now just a matter of carrying on with the momentum. We have got a really great squad with a bunch of good guys. It’s about taking on today and getting another win,” stated the 29-year-old.
It is also the first time de Kock is batting alongside KL Rahul in T20 cricket and he had words of appreciation for the Lucknow skipper. “It’s been good (on batting alongside Rahul). It’s pretty relaxed; we don’t talk so much and have just a mutual understanding of each other, which is quite cool. It’s pretty easy; we don’t go too much into things. Just go out there and play the ball with mutual understanding.”
De Kock believes that he will use his past experience as an opening batter to deal with different batting conditions in IPL 2022. “It hasn’t been too bad. In one game, we got a really spicy wicket and in the next game, it’s all flat at the top. The general thing is team batting second has got little bit better conditions.”
“We had come up against (situations) when we bat first and conditions are little bit more tougher, especially with the seamers. It’s a matter of going back to past experiences and play with the pace I can. Same is for KL and rest of the guys. Today is a day game which could play very differently from what I saw in last night’s game which had a bit of movement early on in both innings. Let’s see what happens.”
