There was a moment in the 20th over of the Kings XI Punjab innings that had Moises Henriques go through a déjà vu of sorts. The ball had been sent soaring high up in the air by wicket-keeper batsman Nikhil Naik and Henriques covered a lot of ground running backwards ultimately to pouch a tough catch making it look rather easy. But few would have known the run of emotions in his mind that time while taking those steps in pursuit of the catch that struck his mind with a flash of memory that had circa 10 months ago written all over it.

It was during a T20 county stint when Henriques collided with his Surrey teammate Rory Burns in early June 2015 that broke his jaw in three places and suffered several serious facial injuries. “There are still some lingering things from that incident. I still get a bit of vertigo. I am constantly reminded of it,” Henriques told IPLT20.com. “I actually didn’t think it would affect me too much until that high ball went up tonight and then I had to turn and chase it. That was the first time that I thought about it on the cricket field since that incident. Other than that moment tonight it hasn’t affected the way I play my cricket.”

But that didn’t stop Henriques from playing cricket. Even during those troubled times and ‘frustrating’ injury layoffs, his constant will to get back to the cricketing field served to be his biggest motivation. “I wasn’t too scarred by the incident. The thing that motivated me the most was just missing games of cricket. Being a professional cricketer and not playing the game of cricket motivated me to play cricket and play it better and improve as a cricketer. Whenever you are hit with an unfortunate injury you are constantly reminded of how lucky you are to be a cricketer. You just want to get back and play cricket. It has been a frustrating year. I have missed a lot of cricket which I feel like I should have played. Hopefully I can make a few changes in the future to try and play as much cricket I can moving forward.”

Having put behind the incident and moved on, Henriques is glad to be back on the field and putting up some meaningful contributions for the Sunrisers Hyderabad. “I haven’t had any match practice before coming to the IPL but I did come for the trial games here and did a lot of training at the nets. I have missed most of the summer at home with the New South Wales and the Sydney Sixers because of three months of my injury. It is good to be back playing cricket. I have really enjoyed coming back into action playing for the Sunrisers. Just that feeling of being out in the cricket field having a good time feels great.”

Henriques has been Sunrisers’ go-to all-rounder. Known to add impetus with both bat and ball, he is a vital cog in the team’s scheme of things. But, for Henriques there was no question of taking his position in the side for granted. “Last year I played the last nine or ten games in a row and on the back of last year, I started this year. As an overseas player you have to perform well consistently. If you are not at the top of your game there is going to be some world-class player ready to come in and do well. When you have Trent Boult and Kane Williamson sitting on the sideline, you know you have to be at the top of your game. I don’t think you ever want to be too comfortable with any team, you’ve got to keep pushing and striving to keep getting better. You never want to be comfortable with your spot.”

From the team’s point of view, the momentum had shifted to their advantage especially after losses in the first two games. Sunrisers have now won three on the trot and are set to play a line of matches at home. “It is nice to be winning games but we know how quickly that can change because three games ago it was the other way round. There were all these things being said that we have lost two in a row and we weren’t looking too strong as a team. Now that we have the momentum on our side we can’t let it change. We got to keep being strong and not get complacent.”

He believes the Sunrisers are a ‘very close’ franchise off the field which is something that suits him well. Orange is the colour that Henriques wants to perform for at the moment and helping his side reach the far end of the tournament held utmost priority. “At the moment I want to focus on performing for the Sunrisers and then getting the team to the semi-finals and win it from there. If you are part of winning teams you learn how to win and learn off the other players who are also winning games. You learn how to play good cricket quicker. You want to play at the highest level wherever you can and that’s the goal for me at the moment.”