Jaipur, Apr 20 (PTI) After excelling in the death overs in Lucknow Super Giants’ thrilling two-run win over Rajasthan Royals, pacer Avesh Khan said he will continue to focus on yorkers, his go-to weapon in crunch situations.

Avesh bowled brilliant 18th and 20th overs, conceding just five and six runs respectively as Lucknow defended 25 runs in the last three overs on Saturday night.

“I will try to continue to bowl yorkers because I always think that yorker is my best ball. I always try to bowl a yorker in any situation. It’s very important to back yourself in the IPL,” said Avesh in the post-match press conference.

Avesh said he was not tense because the Royals were cruising towards a win when he came to bowl in the 18th over with eight wickets in hand.

“I try to focus on execution. When I take the ball on the field, I never get tense. Whatever ball I am going to bowl, I will back it 100%.” “There have been so many high-scoring games in the IPL. The bowlers are getting hit for many runs. In the first over, I also went for 13 runs. But, I always think what is the game demanding? What is the wicket demanding? So, I was focusing on my execution,” he added.

Shimron Hetmyer was getting ready to finish the game off for RR, but the left-hander smashed Avesh straight to Shardul Thakur in the 20th over to hand the momentum back to LSG.

“As soon as he shuffled away from the stumps, I thought that I would bowl a yorker on the stumps. There was only one fielder and his shot went into his hand. So, while running, I decided that if the batsman shuffles a lot, then I try to bowl in front of him.

“So that if he misses, he is out. As you must have seen, the same thing happened with Yashasvi (Jaiswal) and Riyan (Parag). You miss, I hit.” The 28-year-old said the wickets of Jaiswal and Parag in the 18th over gave LSG a massive advantage because it brought together two new batters in the middle in the death overs.

“If a new batsman comes, it is not that easy for him. For a set batsman, you must have seen that the game is easy. For a new batsman, to come in any situation, especially when the ball is keeping a little low is tough. As soon as Yashasvi’s wicket happened, we knew we can squeeze Rajasthan if bowl 2-3 dot balls.” “In the same over, Riyan was also out. So, we got a chance to bowl at two new batsmen. They needed 20 more runs and that’s a big target in that situation.” The Madhya Pradesh pacer said he was a bit tense when David Miller spilled the catch of Shubham Dubey.

Dubey ran two runs with the ROyals needing four off the last ball to win. “As soon as the ball went in the air I was thinking that Miller would catch it. He was completely under the ball. But when he missed the catch, I got a little disappointed. Dubey ran for two runs.” But Avesh was confident of defending four runs off the last ball.

“It was just a 1-ball game because at that time if we had to bowl 4-5 balls more then the scenario could have been different. But it was a 1-ball game. So, I have to execute my game and that was in my mind.

Avesh said he could not celebrate a thrilling win because Dubey’s shot hit his ankle before heading to the fielder.

“I didn’t even get a chance to celebrate. Initially, I thought that the ball hit on my bone. I was seeing stars. I had to blink my eyes.” PTI UNG APA APA