With the Chennai Super Kings’ top-order wilting early against the Rajasthan Royals, Dwayne Bravo performed a rescue act with skipper MS Dhoni to give the bowlers a decent total to bowl at. With the team struggling at 65 for four the pair joined forces just prior to the halfway mark, batted through the rest of the innings and set the hosts a 157-run target. While the RR bowlers kept the visitors in check, Bravo first took on Shane Watson and later launched into Pravin Tambe as he raced to 62 from 36 balls, and built a 91-run unbroken stand with his captain. While reflecting on the game in an interview with iplt20.com after CSK’s first loss of Pepsi IPL 2015, the all-rounder said that it was better to get the loss out of the way now and looks forward to his team bouncing back. Excerpts: Did you draw confidence from having defended 150 in the first game against Mumbai Indians? I think we did well to get to a 150-plus total after the start we got. But having said that, it was a good wicket and they have a very good batting line-up. They have been playing well, were yet to be beaten. So we always knew it was going to be tough. The first six overs are crucial; we needed to get wickets early in order to build some momentum and build some pressure in the middle overs. But unfortunately they both (Shane Watson and Ajinkya Rahane) batted very well. You have to give credit them, they batted very well. I think we were 15-20 runs short. I think if we had got those (extra runs) things would have been different. You usually get to bat later in the innings. How had you planned the innings after the loss of three early wickets today? Well it gave me the opportunity to bat some balls and get set. I like those situations. I am not a big hitter like a (Kieron) Pollard or a (Andre) Russell and other players who come in and hit the ball out of the park. The situation gave me the opportunity to bat for more overs. I know that if I bat deep, I have the ability to catch-up in the end and hit the ball as well. It worked out for me today. But they bowled very well. It was a very slow surface, so it was very difficult to get our time in; and even Mahi (MS Dhoni) himself had it tough. It was a good game. (But) we didn’t bat properly in the first half of the innings, but we did well to recover and we have some positives to take out of it. When Dhoni and you were batting you also needed to ensure that you didn’t lose wickets. What was the discussion like in the middle? We were getting the odd boundary, so we tried not to go through early as that would have exposed the lower order. We both thought that we could stay and get a total of 160-165 on the board, which we did. Our game plan worked out. We looked to bat the entire (remaining) overs, try not to take too many risks and we did that. But like I said, we didn’t get the start that we wanted. So obviously those 15-20 runs was what we missed out on. But (Shane) Watson and Ajinkya (Rahane) batted really well and batted us out of the game early. So we’ve got to give credit to them.

You bowl in the latter half of the innings. How do you prepare to bowl at the back end when sometimes the batsmen are well settled, like today? My role in the team is to bowl at the later stages of the game, more in the death. I am happy with that. There is not much that I can do when the batsman have to score run a ball or so. This is a game we have to forget as quickly as possible and move on to our next challenge which is RCB, another hard game. That is another good thing of the IPL, all games are very hard (challenging). It is good competition and I enjoy it. I enjoy playing my cricket and I am happy to be playing again. It’s been a while since I have played competitive cricket like this. It is good to contribute with both bat and ball, and I want to continue to do my best and win games for the Chennai Super Kings. What was it like bowling to Watson and Rahane today, given the way they were hitting the ball? Nothing (different). Two days ago I bowled to Kieron Pollard. Well that is a normal thing (laughs). But those are world-class players and that’s why the IPL is so great: it is the best against the best. I have been playing international cricket so it’s not the first time that I came across them. But they are both very good players and both have different styles; Watson is more of a power-hitter. It was their day today, so congrats to them and well done. Three wins and one loss. Going forward what do you think the team should look to work on? Continue to win. We expect to lose at some point in time. It’s better to lose early in a tournament than late. There are still a lot of games left so it’s a long way to go. CSK is a team that doesn’t get dampened by a lot, (we) will pull off this. We believe in each other, we are a very good group and we know we are going to do well again. It’s good to get a loss out of the way and then forget it quickly as possible. Rajasthan Royals played very good cricket today, so hats off to them.