MS Dhoni says I should back my skills, says Gurkeerat Mann

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Batting lower down the order, the 26-year-old could not get going against the likes of James Faulkner and Nathan Lyon. More than a year later, he looks back at his brief, and almost fleeting appearance at the international stage with a tinge of regret. “I was batting lower down the order, and just could not get going in any of my three games,” he laments.”Mentally, I could have been more stable. Yes, there was a lack of concentration. Maybe, it’s fair to assume that the enormity of the situation got the better of me,” he adds.

However, his biggest takeaway from the dismal Aussie sojourn was playing under his captain MS Dhoni. Gurkeerat is an unabashed Dhoni fan. In the past, he has played against him at numerous IPL games. But sharing the dressing room with him, according to Mann, was altogether a surreal experience. “Mahi bhai ke under khelne mein bahut mazaa aaya. Bahut encouraging hain, aur hamesha kehte hain ki I should always back my skills,” he says, when asked about his experiences of playing under his international captain.

Gurkeerat has fashioned his game like Dhoni. Batting at No.5 for Punjab, he has donned the role of a finisher for his side with aplomb. Gurkeerat admits the shift took place at the start of the 2013 Ranji season, when his coach asked him to bat down the order and shepherd the tail. “I used to bat at No.3 at the start of my career for Punjab. Only four years back, when my coach Bhupinder Singh Sr asked me to bat at No.5 I agreed. I enjoy batting at this spot, as this helps me to bat more responsibly,” he adds.

On Friday, at the Airforce Sports Complex at Palam, Gurkeerat displayed some of those admirable finishing skills for Punjab in the Vijay Hazare Trophy match against Haryana. Chasing a modest 197, Punjab were put under the pump, were 4/75. But he showed grit and remarkable temperament to seal the game with a well constructed unbeaten 91. “The wickets in Delhi tends to remain low. The last two wickets—at Kotla and Karnail Singh Stadium was two-paced. I thought the Palam wicket was the best for batting.My role is that of the finisher. The score was not daunting and I just wanted to improvise and stay till the end. Even in the last game (against Railways), I stayed till the end and finished the job,” he explains.

Gurkeerat’s string of impressive scores will go a long way in helping him restore confidence after his forgettable international debut and the even more horrific campaign in the just concluded Syed Mushtaq T20 tournament.

“I had just recovered from a shoulder injury and had completed my rehab when I joined the team for the Syed Mushtaq tournament,” he counters. Gurkeerat reckons that he was in pretty good form in the Ranji season as well. “I started the Ranji season pretty well, scoring a hundred and five fifties. But people think I did not have a good season because I could not conert my fifties. Plus Punjab did not progress beyond the knock-outs,” he offers.

The sequence of good scores at the Vijay Hazare surely bodes well for the Punjab middle-order batsman, especially with the IPL around the corner. I’m not looking too far ahead of myself. Yes, the IPL is there. But right now, all my focus and energy is directed at playing in the Vijay Hazare Trophy,” he concludes.

Brief Scores: Haryana 196 in 48.4 overs (N.Saini 48, Harbhajan Singh 4/33) vs Punjab 200 in 41.4 overs (Gurkeerat Mann 91 not out; Shubman Gill 35).