IPL 2023: Big price tag did not add to the pressure, says Cameron Green after scoring ton for MI

Mumbai: As he came into Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 after being tagged as the second costliest player with an auction price of Rs 17.50 crore, Australia’s young allrounder Cameron Green was saddled with huge expectations.

Green generated a lot of interest thanks to his performances during Australia’s tour of India in 2022 and was picked for Rs 17.50 crore, second only to Sam Curran’s Rs 18.50 crore.

On Sunday, Green said the hefty price tag was never an issue for him during his maiden IPL campaign and did not saddle him with extra pressure.

“No, not really. I think Mumbai as a setup has been awesome for me. As soon as I got here, I have seen no pressure from them. All the coaching staff and all the background people have been awesome for me. Put no pressure, so I can go out there and play my game,” said Green during the post-match press conference on Sunday.

Green ended the preliminary stage of IPL 2023 with 318 runs and six wickets for 311 runs in 14 matches, figures that actually did not set the stage on fire.

However, on Sunday he slammed a brilliant maiden century, an unfinished 100, against Sunrisers Hyderabad to help Mumbai Indians to an eight-wicket win at the Wankhede Stadium.

Green said he enjoyed batting with Rohit Sharma on Sunday as they shared a 128-run partnership that put Mumbai Indians on course to victory.

“It was absolutely awesome being out there with Rohit. We helped each other through there. When you are chasing 200, you obviously have to show pretty good intent at the top. Just being at the other end with him, I was trying to smack the spinners and he was batting beautifully against the pace bowlers,” said Green.

The 23-year-old allrounder from Perth said was not bothered by the changes in his position in the batting order and said he was pencilled in to bat at No. 3 but was ready to go in at whatever position the team thought fit.

“It never changed throughout the whole tournament. I was always scheduled to come out at No 3, we have got someone like Suryakumar Yadav at No 4 and we want him to face as many balls as he can. I kind of get slipped down a little bit which is absolutely fine when you have got someone like SKY right behind you. I have to do whatever I can for the team,” said Green.

He said throughout the match, Mumbai Indians players were not thinking too much about the NRR or the result of the RCB match.

“Our intention was to win the game. We were not going to try and chase down the target in the seventh over anyway or anything to try and boost our (net) run-rate. We know how close games can get here at Wankhede, both teams score really freely out here. All we were thinking was to win and put pressure on RCB,” he said, adding: “We have done everything we can, everything we can control. We have to wait and see.”

–IANS