Preity high praise for Gilly

preity zinta and mom at KXIP 

Dharamsala, May 17: Preity Zinta, the vivacious co-owner of Kings XI Punjab, was beaming after her team thrashed the Royal Challengers Bangalore by 111 runs to keep their Playoffs chances alive.In an exclusive interview to www.iplt20.com, Preity spoke of her team’s winning run and shared her secret on sharing a strong bond with all her players.

On the team’s amazing run in the tournament
                                           
Well, I’m not going to say too much right now. [I am] Just keeping my fingers crossed. All the credit goes to Adam Gilchrist and the team. They have come together and made a good comeback. We [have] had three wins in a row. Then the momentum broke and I don’t know what happened. We lost five in a row. Then to come back is really good. Each player is contributing. There is no one standout player doing it for us. There is Paul Valthaty in one game, there is Adam in one, a young Bhargav Bhatt in one, Piyush Chawla in one, Dinesh Karthik in one and Shaun Marsh in one. I think, that is the mark of a team.

On what was she telling the team through their five-game losing streak

[Laughs] Nothing. Well, it was a very personal chat. I don’t think I can repeat what I said. I spoke from my heart. We have a good bunch of boys. There are no big egos. I just told them to go for it and how good they are.

On her excellent rapport with her players

I think I’m a people’s person. I’ve always been a people’s person. Doing movies is also being a people’s person. You are surrounded with a set of 40, 50, 80 people. For me all these boys are like my family. What is really nice is that even though the auction has happened, a lot of our old players come back to us and say, ‘We miss Punjab take us back’. And there are other players who say, ‘Why didn’t you pick us’? Each member in our team is treated equally. There is no junior, there is no senior. Yes, in terms of respect definitely there is a junior and senior. But otherwise, everybody is treated equal. And we are very lucky to have Adam Gilchrist to lead us. He is a man of great character and great depth.

On what has she learned from her experience as an IPL owner

We have to work at one block and we all have to be chips off the same block. You can’t have various different blocks. United we stand, divided we fall. Everybody has a good day someday, a bad day another day. I’ve learnt to lose with a smile. But you know, what doesn’t kill you, only makes you thinner and stronger.

On what does she have to say to the many fans of Kings XI Punjab who ask for Yuvraj Singh

We bid for him [in the IPL auctions]. We bid as much as we could. It didn’t work out. We could not get him in this auction. Bhajji [Harabhajan Singh] is also from Punjab. Why don’t people talk about Bhajji? Slowly, people have accepted us for who we are and the players we have. He [Yuvraj] is with Pune and I wish him all the very best.