Honestly, it doesn’t feel like we went away for too long. There was a lot of cricket in between as well. We’re very excited that we’re playing in India again, although in a different way, in a different setting. But we’re very happy, very excited, and very optimistic and, yeah, I have a good feeling.
Yeah, I wasn’t too bad. I spent a lot of time in the room in the last week, and before their traveling, so it was quite intense coming out. I hit the ground running and I gave it my absolute best. I had a lot of fun here tonight and I’ll be hitting the ball. It’s very enjoyable just to be here. I’m very excited to plan another IPL with the RCB and just going to have a lot of fun this year. We are playing our first match against Mumbai. They are a very good team – five-time IPL champions. We’ll give our best to beat them and, hopefully, we have a good team this year. It’s the first game of the IPL, and I think we’re all very excited. And the Mumbai Indians are fantastic. We meet on numerous occasions, numerous times, so we know what we’re up against. They’ve got some experienced hits in the lineup. It’s a game that’s played on the day, at the moment, and at that moment you could be better than any other guy in the world, if you believe in yourself to be. So, we have to believe in our team.
So, yeah, we expect a great game to start off the IPL. I can’t think of a more exciting, or more highly skilled and intense game to start off this IPL, which is going to be amazing. I thank my big guy up in the heavens. I thank him that my family could be here to watch me play, and especially my sons being old enough to understand the game a bit, understand that daddy is playing. It’s very special. I’m very blessed just to play another IPL. I’m really blessed to be with RCB. We’re at the top of the table. It’s not the end of the world. It’s a game of cricket; we had to have a loss at some stage. That’s the nature of this tournament. But to have a performance like that, I would rather have it at the start of the tournament, and learn from it, and understand what we need to correct, moving forward. We’ve got a great start so far, so still be really positive about what we’ve achieved, but obviously we move on from today and we hit hard on Tuesday when we go to our bed. At the end of the day, it’s all about the team winning, so purple cap is a good feather in that hat. But winning games for the team is definitely more important. It’s been a bit of a lottery here. I think some games have juice, some haven’t. So, yeah, I think from the way things played out, we’d let them get away. We pegged them back really well, but then they obviously got away from us at the end of the innings again. What’s happening in our country with the spread of the COVID virus is deeply concerning.
RCBI has identified key areas in which immediate help is required: in healthcare infrastructure related to oxygen support, and will be making a financial contribution in this regard to support this work. You must have seen the announcement already. We’ve got a call about half an hour ago from the BCCI, to say that they are going to be suspending the IPL, given the fact that four teams are affected and there’s just too much of risk. They are not certain when this will resume, but I just want to make it clear that it will resume. It’s not as if it’s a cancelled tournament. It will start afresh, right? It’s going to resume.
You know, we trust that the BCCI will obviously gather as much information as they can, when looking at the window, around September, and obviously keep us all informed. We’ll be part of the decision-making as well, just to make sure that when it’s rescheduled that everybody’s safe, and as I said, that the players and everybody involved is going to have a safe environment. It absolutely has been the experience of a lifetime.
And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But the icing on the cake has been RCB. For me, to walk away at this point halfway, having had such a good start to the tournament – there’s nothing could be more heart-wrenching than that. All right, so thank you for these wonderful gifts. Thank you for everything that you do for this amazing franchise. It has been our privilege and my privilege I think, to be associated with every one of you and this franchise as well. All right, thank you everybody.
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