His two sixes over the bowlers heads gave a glimpse of Kedar Jadhav’s ability to hit big and hit hard. But taking the Delhi Daredevils precarious position into account, when he came to the crease the wicketkeeper-bat held his instincts in check and guided the team to 114 at the end of their allotted 20 overs. With half the side back in the dug-out and six and half overs left in the innings, Jadhav joined Irfan Pathan in the middle as the home team struggled to set the Sunrisers Hyderabad a competitive target. And after Pathan’s departure, Jadav held his nerve and guided the tail-enders to see through the twenty overs. With an unbeaten 30 off 20, the highest score in the game from either side, the diminutive batter set-up the game and gave the bowlers a total to bowl at, even if, eventually his team ended on the losing side, but certainly not without a fight. While speaking to iplt20.com after their fourth loss on the trot, Jadhav recalled his innings and reflected on the game. Excerpts from the interview: Your 30-run knock helped give the bowlers something to defend. What was the plan when you went out to bat? When I came out to bat Irfan bhai (Irfan Pathan) told me that we will have to do all the batting because there was only the bowlers to follow. So we had to cut down on playing a few shots and we focused on setting the best target possible by playing safe shots. But once Irfan bhai also got out I think we were about 20 to 30 runs short (of the total we would have liked to have). Once we lost the top players we were thinking of getting to 140 approximately at least. Whenever we were looking to gain momentum we lost wickets and we didn’t get runs from both ends. Had you planned to play big shots? Today I tried playing safe shots. I wanted to hit but since there was no batsman at the other end so went for safe shots where the chances of scoring runs was higher and getting out minimal. We saw that you were instructing Umesh Yadav before he faced the fast ball, what did you tell him? I was telling him that Thisara Perera bowls the yorker right up in the front and that he will not take chances of bowling a good length ball. I told him to be ready and wherever he bowls to just take a swing at it. I told him with his strength the ball can well go to the boundary. That’s all that I told him. While keeping wickets for someone Morne Morkel what are the challenges that you face? In Indian conditions I haven’t really felt those many challenges because I haven’t kept that much. When the ball moves a bit more my wicketkeeping will be tested. But I am confident of my wicketkeeping. Tell us about the stumping of Cameron White off Shahbaz Nadeem since it was an important wicket to fall The way Nadeem was bowling something like that was to be expected. So I was excited and was watching the ball carefully. What was it like there while batting? The wicket was good for batting according to me. If we would have stuck in a bit there we would have been able to score a few more runs. DD has lost four games and the forthcoming matches are against teams like RCB and CSK, how do you regroup? RCB and CSK are good sides but the kind of players we have, if they click on the particular day you never know who will win. You were in good form coming into the IPL? Has that helped you here although the kind of bowling you face is different here? It has definitely helped. I have been scoring runs for a year in all formats and my confidence is good. And there is a calmness that has come in which is helping me execute my skills better. The rush of blood which is used be there earlier has cooled down now. So that has definitely helped. What have you been doing to be a lot more effective this season? Last year also I had performed well in the domestic one-dayers but I didn’t get opportunities in the last season of IPL but this year I scored consistently throughout the 2012-13 domestic season. What have you done to become more consistent? I am more focused because of maturity. But I would still say that I have matured slowly and so now I want to make more innings count in less time. I want to be more consistent. I have thrown away a few innings but now I can’t be doing that I feel.