There was pressure but I had belief in myself: Vaibhav Arora

Vaibhav Arora led the Punjab Kings' (PBKS) bowling attack against Chennai Super Kings (CSK), finishing with impressive figures of 2 for 21 on his debut for the franchise. 

He was picked by PBKS for a price of INR 2 crore in the IPL 2022 auction from a base price of INR 20 lakh. Arora admitted that there were nerves, but his good performances at the domestic circuit gave him the confidence to perform well. 

"Yeah there was pressure of it being a debut match for me but I had belief in myself, that I've done this before in the domestic circuit and practice matches," Arora said in the post-match press conference.

"Wherever we've played - I've always bowled well with the new ball, swung it both ways. So there was confidence. I reaped the result of that confidence."

With Arora swinging the ball early on and ecided to bowl him out early given that PBKS had Arshdeep Singh and Kagiso Rabada to do the job at the death. Though he did not get a wicket in his final over, he had done his job having removed Robin Uthappa and Moeen Ali in the powerplay.

"Since the ball was swinging, Mayank told me to go for my fourth [over] straight away since I'd already picked two wickets in my three overs," the PBKS pacer said. 

"We had Arshdeep Singh and Kagiso Rabada to bowl at the death so the plan was to try for another wicket in my fourth over."

Arora stated there was no dew even after the powerplay, which could be due to the fact that the ground staff at the Brabourne Stadium could have sprayed an anti-due agent all over the ground. "I felt the dew was a little less today compared to the previous games. Dew was there but not so much that the ball was getting too wet. I didn't bowl at the death but the new ball didn't get too wet today," Arora observed.

PBKS have now won two of their three games so far and will look to continue their momentum into the next game against Gujarat Titans (GT) at the Brabourne Stadium on Friday (April 8).