Hubli: As a youngster chiseling his cricketing skills, R. Vinay Kumar was as much a batsman as a bowler, but a move to Bengaluru from Davanagere a decade ago, saw him shift focus to bowling. Although the opportunities to bat dur ing matches have been few, the Karnataka skip per continued to slug it out with the willow at the nets. With eight half-cen turies to his credit, the unbeaten 105 in his 80th first class game, was long overdue.
“I was waiting for such an opportunity to come my way for the past four or five years. I have scored many fifties but in all those situations the team needed to declare or I had to play my shots. Today was a great opportunity because two days were left in the game and we already had the innings lead. I did not think I wou ld get the century after losing Mithun and Appanna but Sharath played very well,“ said Vinay .
The skipper, who was a picture of concentration and intent during his 222 minutes stay at the crease, further added, “Before coming to Bengaluru I was a batsman who could bowl a bit. In Bengaluru, I started giving bowling more time. The coaches used to tell me that I had the ability but lacked the focus.
JAK (coach J. Arun Kumar) was telling me that this year I had to score a century . In fact this morning he told me that one century was due from me.“
When asked if the declaration came a little late, Vinay defended the decision saying, “No. If we would have declared and if they had not got out, I would have regretted it.“
On the show of strength from the bowlers, the right-arm medium pacer said, “It has to do with hunger. We need to win Ranji Trophy this year so the boys are putting in a lot of effort. Mithun and I want to come back to the Indian team.“
