New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) After his unbeaten 85 off 33 balls helped Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) get a top two finish with a six-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), stand-in skipper Jitesh Sharma said batting coach Dinesh Karthik’s advice of “keep looking at the ball” and “play normal cricketing shots” helped him a lot in hitting a breath-taking knock.

Jitesh’s knock ensured RCB chased down 228 with eight balls to spare. He also shared an unbeaten 107-run stand with Mayank Agarwal, who scored 41 not out, as RCB set up a Qualifier 1 meeting with Punjab Kings in Mullanpur on Thursday.

“I didn’t have a calculation. I spoke to DK and he said, ‘Just keep looking at the ball and try to play normal cricketing shots. And take the game to the end. If you keep playing, I believe you’ll finish the match’. I think it’s all about preparation. We had discussed every bowler the other day. What can I do? What kind of body shape do I want? So I was just trying to remind myself again and again,” said Jitesh in a video posted on iplt20.com.

Asked on the advice he got from Agarwal, Jitesh revealed, “I think he was controlling me and telling me what to do. He was telling me again and again what was going on in the game, because I was in my zone. He was giving me the shape and guiding me in the run chase.”

RCB pulling off the third-highest successful chase in IPL’s history came after they couldn’t complete a chase against Sunrisers Hyderabad, despite that being in their grasp. “When everything is going well, it’s important to have a speed breaker because when you are awake, you get a punch, you get to know where you are going wrong and what’s happening.”

“So I think that last match was that for us, that’s what I wanted to say. Then there was a hunger in everyone, like this became a do-or-die match, and everybody’s A game was slowly coming out,” concluded Jitesh.

–IANS

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