Singh looking for home comforts

Mumbai: Mumbai Indians off-spinner Harbhajan Singh is confident of continuing the winning streak for his side.

Excerpts:

On the crowd support
Obviously, it is nice to have people cheering for you and I would like to thank them for coming and supporting us all the way. It feels great to have them backing us. Obviously there are times in the match when you want to get charged up and that’s when the crowds get going. Sometimes that helps you to be more aggressive in your bowling or sometimes you are in your own zone; you don’t even feel there is any crowd, you just concentrate so hard that you just concentrate on the ball and the bat - that’s it. So in different situations they do help but in other situations you feel that there is no one [there], just me and the batsman.

On getting more crowd support than in Deccan’s home game
Definitely. The game is in Mumbai so definitely we will get a lot of support and we are looking forward to this game tomorrow and Deccan are a good team. They have played good cricket so far in this tournament and we are looking forward to having a good match tomorrow and hopefully we can beat them in Navi Mumbai.

On player injuries

Ryan McLaren
I think Ryan McLaren has got some niggle. I think he is taking it easy today and should be fit for tomorrow. But if he is not then we have lots of other players who can definitely come in and do well.

JP Duminy
I don’t know, we haven’t decided on any kind of combination as yet.

Ambati Rayudu
Rayudu is fit to play, definitely. He is feeling much better; he is batting in the nets so I am sure he will be fit for tomorrow.

On coming face to face with Andrew Symonds
So what, it is just another game for me. I have played many games against him, or any other team, so it is just another game for me. I am not looking at my rivalry with Symonds or [Matthew] Hayden or anyone. It is just a game of cricket, I am going to go there and enjoy it. That’s what I am looking to do and hopefully win the game for Mumbai.

On the strategic time-outs
Honestly, I don’t want to say much on this but this two-and-a-half minute is still much better than the previous one because you don’t really get out of your touch in two-and-a-half minutes. It goes so quick, but seven minutes was a pretty long break. I think this is a good thing.

On time-outs being used sparingly by teams
Yeah you get more time; you want to definitely use the time to discuss lot of things, discuss your fielding and batting, how you are going to play and stuff, so as a team every team wants to take that two-and-a-half minute break for as long as possible.

On whether he is happy with his bowling
I am always happy, irrespective of whether I am bowling well or not. I play the game because I enjoy this game so much. There will be some times in this tournament where every bowler will go for runs so there is no need to get panicked and get disheartened if you go for runs. You just need to enjoy this IPL 3 and my job is to bowl well for the team and that’s what I look to do every time whenever I take to the field. Sometimes I will succeed and sometimes I will not, so it’s a part of the game and I am happy. So far I have been doing well.

On whether he feels MI will win against DC
Well, definitely. As I said, this is like a home game, tomorrow’s game for us, and we would like to win this game and go up to 10 points. Then we have another game at home, we have two games there. So we definitely want to make sure that we win each and every game. We are playing good cricket and we just want to continue to do that and make sure that we are the first ones to qualify for the semis. We don’t want to leave anything behind because in the last two seasons we made a lot of mistakes and we have learnt a lot from them and [are] hoping that we will play the same sort of cricket and win all the games.

On the difference in MI from the last two seasons
In the last two seasons I think we were almost there but in the last few overs we were not there. Now everyone is contributing and they are not thinking that somebody else will come and do the job. Everyone has taken the responsibility and doing a great job for the team and hats off to Sachin Tendulkar [for] the way he is batting; he has been a great match-winner for India and now he is showing it here for Mumbai Indians and it’s great to have a player like him who is leading the side and leading from the front and scoring all the runs. I hope he continues to stay with his form and continues to win lots and lots of games for us. All I can say is, touch wood, he keeps on batting like this and keeps on winning games for us.

On sledging
I have stopped sledging.