I don’t plan to hit sixes, says Nicholas Pooran

"I've never worked on my bat speed, I'm just blessed with incredible talent," Pooran said

Hyderabad: Nicholas Pooran, whose blinder (26-ball 70 including six fours and six sixes) fashioned Lucknow Super Giants’ five-wicket win against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Thursday night, said he doesn’t plan to hit sixes and that he just tried to get his best to get in good positions.

“If it’s there, just time the ball nicely. In the last nine years I have been working on my craft. Obviously, I have been getting the opportunity to bat higher up in the powerplay as well,” Pooran said in a post-match interaction on JioHotstar.

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“It is really important to cash in when the wicket is nice and obviously when the match-up is there you try your best to execute your skills,” said Pooran who completed his half-century in just 18 balls, the third fastest in IPL history. “I’ve never worked on my bat speed, I’m just blessed with incredible talent,” he said.

“I am really happy that I have put in the work over the years and I am getting the reward on the cricket field and winning games for my team as well,” Pooran said.

“It’s a really long tournament and it’s nice to see Marsh (Mitchell) at the top of the order,” Pooran said.

“He’s shown his class especially against the seamers there. We are playing cricketing shots and not losing wickets. Our left-right combination is really important. In important parts of the game, we drop our intensity a bit, knock it around to ensure that we continue to build partnerships and also take our match-ups down.” And Marsh said that it was fascinating. “That’s probably the word I have for it (Pooran’s knock).”

“Obviously, I’ve played against Nicky [Pooran] for a long time and you’re often on the other end of that. So to be on his team, I feel like I really connect with him as a bloke and someone who I’m going to hopefully bat with a lot. He’s a fantastic player,” Marsh said.

For his part, LSG captain Rishabh Pant said that mostly the thought was to give freedom to him. “We know what damage he can do down the order. I like that freedom too, but you have got to give someone that charge that you have to go and express yourself. The way he has been batting is phenomenal for us,” he said.