KOLKATA: Mitchell Starc has got the monkey off his back. The KKR pacer's three wickets against LSG on Sunday will surely do a world of good to his confidence.
The Australian pacer, however, would rather talk about the team's performance after Sunday's 8-wicket win. "We did quite well as a group and that's what counts," he said after the match.
"It was good to perform well here at the Eden Gardens." IPL's costliest player ever, however, has shut out the noise on his price tag quite effectively. "I don't read what is being written," he grinned.
Talking about the win, he admitted that the wicket was easy to bat on in the second half. "It was a bit two-paced early on, but eased out. We adapted to the conditions better than Lucknow."
IPL is tough on the body given the scheduling, but Starc said he was experienced enough to handle the workload. "T20 is easy on the body," he said. "Much easier than Test cricket."
He hasn't played much T20 over the past year, but with the T20 World Cup coming up, IPL is an ideal stage for practice.
Batting let us down, admits Langer: LSG head coach Justin Langer admitted that their batters had let the team down. "KL Rahul was batting beautifully, but we kept on losing wickets and that put the pressure back on us," Langer said, hinting that the hectic schedule might have had an impact.
"It was a bit too much asking the boys to play on Friday, fly in yesterday and play again today."
However, the coach knows that there are areas they have to work on, like facing the spinners. "We haven't managed too many boundaries off the spinners in the last couple of games and that's an area we need to work on," Langer said.
