The Indian Premier League wasn?t a happy-hunting territory for India?s Under-19 World Cup winning captain, Unmukt Chand, until Sunday. Before the game against RCB in Bengaluru, Chand had played 15 IPL matches spread over five seasons without a significant score to his name.

In Pepsi IPL 2015, donning the Mumbai Indians jersey, he played one match before being dropped for the next and then picked again. And this time, the young batsman was determined to make it count. And so he did, with an innings of 58 from 37 balls that helped MI to a total of 209 and eventually their first win of the tournament. After MI?s 18-run win over RCB, Chand told iplt20.com how relieved he was to finally set the ball rolling in his IPL career. He also gave an insight into the coaching style of Ricky Ponting. We finally got to see an Ummukt Chand special at the IPL Oh, yes. Finally! It took a long time for me to do something of note in the IPL. I haven?t played many matches; last year I got one match, this season I played one then didn?t play the last game. It?s been tough for me but I am happy that finally I could spend some time in the middle and score some runs.

How tough is it for a young, upcoming player to be in that situation? IPL is a long tournament and one thing you want as a youngster is to play all the matches. You are eager to go out there and perform. So, it?s been difficult in that regards. You get to learn a lot in this situation as well. You have to tell yourself to be patient and keep believing that your chance will come. And when it does come, you have to pounce on it with both hands. How sweet does this win taste after the rocky start? It feels good, it?s a pleasant change. It feels great to have finally won a game and I hope that the winning streak continues. We have been playing well but we haven?t been able to get to the other side of the rope. We have often been beaten in the last over. One peculiar feature of MI?s season so far is that you have kept losing wickets at regular intervals but still managed to get to 160 every time. How would you explain that? That is one good thing that has been happening to us consistently. In spite of losing a few wickets in the powerplay in the last couple of matches we were still able to score 160-170, which is a decent score on any ground. If our top-order scores some runs we saw today what we can achieve as a team. That is one aspect we need to be mindful of. Is consistency the main thing the team is striving to achieve? Absolutely. We needed one win to get out of the rut and now that we have it, we will try to keep up this standard for the rest of the tournament. You have been talking to Ricky Ponting a bit about batting. What are the conversations like? Ricky is such a positive guy and so full of energy. He really boosts your morale, which is so important at this level. The best thing about Ricky is that if he believes in you, he backs you to the hilt. I have been talking about technique to him as well but it is the conversations we have on the mental side of things that has really been helping me. What kind of a coach is he proving to be -? is he aggressive? Oh, he is. You really cannot make out whether he is coaching or still playing. He is still so aggressive, you can only imagine how he would have been during his playing days. It shows in the way he approaches every practice session, the way he goes out there and gets us all together, talks to us and motivates us all. He invigorates us to come back strong after a loss. Is he a hard taskmaster? He is a very good guy. But when we are training, he doesn?t like to mess around. He expects every individual to give their best and if we do that, he is happy. When we are not on the field, he is one of the most chilled out guys. He doesn?t talk about the game, which is a good thing. When we are out there, he expects nothing short of everything from us. It is only fair because he gives his 100 per cent all the time.