What do you do if you are Ryan ten Doeschate? You are fit, you are agile, you having the required capabilities, but you are not assured of a spot in the side every game. As the man himself says, “It is all about being ready every time the need requires you to perform and do the same to the best of your abilities when you take the field.”

Such was the case on Sunday night at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad as the Kolkata Knight Riders registered their fourth consecutive win, courtesy some tension-free batting from Ryan ten Doeschate. The all-rounder, along with Yusuf Pathan, put up a crucial unbeaten 42-run stand and kept his cool in the final over of the match to help his team finish off with a win. Admittedly, ten Doeschate did feel some nerves when the team required 10 off the final over, and he was happy that he could hold his nerves under pressure.

In this exclusive chat with IPLT20.com, ten Doeschate relives the final over of the match and speaks about making every opportunity count this IPL.

Excerpts from his interview:

It got pretty close in the end with 10 to get off the last over. Were you nervous?

Yes, of course! 10 runs is a target that could go either way, especially after Dale Steyn bowled an exceptional second-last over. He is a world-class bowler and so is Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, who has done well for the Sunrisers this season. But as a batsman, you know the bowlers are trying to bowl yorkers at the end. You need to get a couple of boundaries to get that target. And with the six early on in the last over it was pretty easy going.

You spoke about that six off the second ball of the over. Was it always a plan to target a boundary option early on and not leave it till the end?

The whole idea was to get a couple of boundaries as soon as we can in the over, irrespective of who was on strike. Had Yusuf faced that delivery, even he would have looked for a boundary. As I said, it was important that we got a big one early on and that six really helped us get closer to the target and chase it down.

What was the talk with Yusuf Pathan when you walked out to bat and you still needed 39 from the last five overs?

Yusuf Pathan is very calm out there. We just worked out how many boundaries we needed to get all the way through. Yusuf has not changed too much. He is very quiet and I don’t think he lets anything negative get to him. It is a bit of a novelty and a luxury to have him in the team because he is someone who can win you games out of nowhere. He has done that in the past and got a good knock in a losing cause this year. But he showed what he can do tonight.

Four wins on the trot; the team has got to be in a good space.

It was an up and down kind of a start to our tournament and we knew that we had a lot of work to do to turn things in our favour. It has been one hell of an effort to string four victories on the trot. There are three more games to go and we probably need to win two of those. But having said that, there is still a lot of hard work to do.

We hear talks of peaking at the right time. Is there anything of that sort at all in a tournament like IPL?

(Laughs) It is a cliché. It is an eight-team tournament and unless you have a superb run like Chennai Super Kings or King XI Punjab, you are never in the tournament or totally out of it. I don’t really believe in that saying and as a team our priority is to get in the top four spots and peak at the backend of the tournament. Whoever plays well in those last three games will win the tournament.

You have been in and out of the squad; how challenging is it for you to perform when you are not assured a place in the playing XI?

The toughest part is finding a place in the playing XI with only four slots for overseas players. You have to keep yourself ready and put up your best show when you do get a chance. It has been a bit frustrating to be out of the side at times and the biggest challenge is to perform the role that your team needs you to on that given day. When you see a great player like Jacques Kalllis missing out, that in itself makes you question if you are good enough. As a squad player, you have got to be ready at all times, and if you can get your side to a victory like tonight, nothing like it.

Yusuf Pathan, Shakib Al Hasan and yourself form the crux of the middle order for KKR. Have you been assigned definite roles during a match?

To be honest, the responsibility is very limited. The powerhouse of our run-chases has been Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir because of which our middle order has not felt the need to do much. Yusuf Pathan has got two good knocks under his belt now, which augurs well for us, and I am sure there will be more times in the tournament when the middle order will have to come into the picture and win games. We need to prepare ourselves for that eventuality when the openers do not always get runs.

Personally, have you set any goals for the tournament?

I want to help KKR win matches when I get a chance to play. When you get small opportunities like I did tonight, I want to make sure that I make the most of it. I want to contribute as much as I can and I certainly gain a lot of confidence from tonight’s game after being there till the end.