Karachi Kings saviour Kieron Pollard’s last-ball heroics on Saturday night saw his team remain in the tournament by the skin of their teeth and while it seemed like no-one else in the Dubai stadium were confident of a Karachi win, Pollard was.
The West Indian hit two sixes off the final two balls of the match to leave Karachi within one final win of reaching the Qualifying Finals of this year’s PSL.
With 28 needed off the final two overs and then 10 from the last two balls, it looked far more likely that Karachi would make an ignominious exit at the group stage and Lahore Qalandars safely into the next phase of the competition.
Pollard explained that his priority was to make contact with the ball first, confident that he had the ability to clear the boundary despite the heightened pressure.
First of all, to keep a cool head, we’re just trying to make contact with the deliveries first,” he said. “To get runs, you have to make contact with the ball and it’s just a matter of making contact.
“And with keeping calm when you look at it, it’s just a cricket match at the end of the day. Yes, if we had lost we’d have got knocked out but it’s not a life or death situation so it makes no sense stressing too much about it. There’s so many things in life to stress about than stressing in a cricket match.”
Aamer Yamin was the bowler that bore the brunt of Pollard’s belligerence and the West Indian all-rounder believes his reputation for such powerful hitting puts pressure on the bowler despite the odds being stacked in their favour.
“Obviously my reputation around the world is for hitting sixes so obviously I know once I’m there that the bowler is going to be under pressure as well and it’s just a matter of trying to execute and getting ball on to bat and luckily enough tonight it went our way,” he added before explaining that such a dramatic win will boost Karachi but they are keenly aware of how tough their route to the title is.
“In T20 cricket these sort of games change momentum,” said Pollard. “Guys start to believe a bit more and that’s what we need in our dressing room.
“We had a frank chat today at the hotel and we knew we had to come up and come out big tonight. It’s a big task because to go all the way through now, we have to win four games but at the end of the day we live to see another day.”
