Lendl Simmons’ name was pencilled in the top-order of the Mumbai Indians after Aaron Finch exited Pepsi IPL 2015 with an injury. And in the eight matches the Trinidadian has played so far, he has 277 runs with three half-centuries – most by a MI batsman in the season. Unlike most of his fellow West Indians who personify swagger and audacity, Simmons is an unassuming man with a soft voice and gentle mannerisms. Unlike some of the glamorous opening batsmen in the tournament, he doesn’t set the hearts racing. Instead, he goes about his business quietly and before the cheering fans notice, he has already given his team a brisk yet solid start. Simmons did just that against CSK at Chennai when MI were chasing a tricky 160. With Parthiv Patel, Simmons gave his team the perfect platform from where the new dynamite called Hardik Pandya took them home. In a chat with iplt20.com after MI’s six-wicket win, Simmons spoke about his opening partnership with Parthiv and the very satisfying win over CSK in their own den.

You are having a pretty happy tournament so far. Yes, so far things have been going the way I wanted them to. I don’t have as many half-centuries as I would have liked but I think I am doing the important thing, which is giving my team a good start. A good start is very important to have a good score in the end. You have opened with many partners at MI. Do you think this pair of you and Parthiv Patel has steadied things at the top order? You can never tell, but so far Parthiv and I have been doing the job, giving the team a good, solid platform to build on. But you know this is a funny game. You don’t score in two games and things will change. But we remain positive and take it one game at a time. We now have won five out of five and that is pretty good. On this wicket, 160 is a tricky target to chase. What was the plan like when you guys went out to bat? Yes, it is a big outfield and a slow wicket. So it was really important to have a good powerplay. The new ball comes on to the bat well, so it was important to score as many as we can in the first six. As the ball gets older it gets tougher to score. Those three quick wickets brought in some tension? Yes, losing your top three in quick succession will bring a bit of panic. But (Ambati) Rayudu and Rohit (Sharma) handled the situation well. Hardik (Pandya) played a blinder and showed everyone what he is capable of. Parthiv and myself got out in the same over. It was lapse of concentration on my part (and) very silly of me to get out like that. Thankfully the guys who followed stuck to their task and got us home. Four losses followed by five wins on the bounce – talk about MI’s amazing turnaround. The last year too we were in a similar situation – we lost our first five games. I think we just like coming from behind. Hopefully the losses are out of the way and we can continue in this vein. In the first four matches we did get the scores we wanted but our bowling wasn’t coming to the party. Now our bowlers are complementing our batting and when that happens, we can defend or chase any total.