Hyderabad: Young West Indian pacer Alzarri Joseph who is playing for Mumbai Indians (MI) this season described his record-breaking bowling effort on his IPL debut as ‘unbelievable’, and said he will cherish the moment for a long time to come.
The soft-spoken Joseph (6/12) claimed the best bowling figures in IPL’s history, bettering Sohail Tanvir’s 6/14 registered in the inaugural edition in 2008. The previous best figures on IPL debut was Andrew Tye’s 5/17, in 2017.
“Unbelievable. It’s a great start. I don’t think I could have asked for anything better. So I will really cherish this moment,” said Joseph at the post-match press conference after helping MI secure a 40-run win over Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) here Saturday night.
Joseph claimed the wickets of dangerman David Warner, Vijay Shankar, Deepak Hooda, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Siddharth Kaul to hand MI their third win from five games.
Asked what was going on his mind before his debut, he said: “It was my first game. So I just wanted to go out and put all my effort into this team. The score doesn’t really matter. I just go out and put my best foot forward. You get the information from the first ball so you know what variations you need to use.”
Joseph said the Wankhede pitch was not the best one for shot-making and they believed in defending the modest total at the break. “The pitch wasn’t the easiest to play on, so 136 from 120 balls we knew we were in for a game if we take some early wickets,” Joseph informed.
Stating that his sole aim is to help his side win the IPL crown, Joseph said he was happy to finish off things for Mumbai by claiming the last wicket of Kaul.
“It’s not something I play for (personal achievements). I play for wins. It’s a good feeling but I want to win this tournament with Mumbai,” Joseph pointed out.
“The last wicket is special because it gave us the win. My aim is to do my best to win games for my team. Just put my whole effort into the team,” added the soft-spoken pacer
PTI