CM Gautam: Chat with Mike Hussey helped me a lot

CM Gautam's contributions may have gone unnoticed on several occasions, but, never the one to complain, he goes about his work like always. Gautam has been a crucial cog in the Karnataka middle-order, as witnessed during the 2014-15 Ranji season, rescuing his side in times of need. The 29-year-old wicketkeeper-batsman, having recently married his lady love, is looking forward to a new innings, both on the cricketing and personal fronts. In an exclusive chat with Cricbuzz, Gautam speaks about his highs and lows with the Karnataka Ranji team, his IPL experience and representing defending champions Mysuru Warriors in the upcoming edition of KPL, among other things.

Congratulation on your new innings.Getting married to your loved one is special and it has been a good journey so far. I had a good break, my wedding break for the past two months. I am really fresh and looking forward to this KPL.

You did not feature in KPL last year. How do you plan to go about it this season?Last year, I did not play the KPL. I sat out because of my knee surgery. It was disappointing to sit back and see all your team-mates playing. It is a wonderful tournament. So, this year, I plan to use all my IPL experience in this year's KPL. I have certain plans - how to build my innings, play according to the role given by my franchise and all those things. I have my own plans and I am prepared for this year's KPL.

You spoke about IPL experience. Could you elaborate on it?IPL experience is something different. You get to rub shoulders with the foreign players and the international cricketers. You can see how they train, how they prepare for the game, what kind of shots they play and what is their mindset about T20 cricket. Whenever I have time, I usually sit and chat with them about the preparation part and how to build an innings in T20 cricket, which is very important. The general perception about T20 cricket is that you go bang-bang from ball one. That is not the case - it is a 120-ball game, it is a long period. Building the innings in T20 cricket is something I have learnt and I would like to put that to use during KPL. I had a chat with Mike Hussey last year with Mumbai Indians. I spent a lot of time with him and he told me a few things about batting, how to convert your starts, how to build your innings, when to attack, when to play singles and all those things. The chat with him definitely helped me a lot.

In the previous Ranji season, you came up with some crucial knocks lower down the order. But, you missed out on hundreds on a couple of occasions. Your thoughts on that.My contribution was very important for the team, especially during the first half of the tournament. We were playing on seaming wickets and were struggling a bit with the bat. Whenever I went out to bat, it was five down for 50 or 100. From there, I had to rebuild the innings and set a platform for the team to get a big score. However, I was not so happy because I could have converted those fifties to 100s. I missed out on three-four hundreds last year. That was pretty disappointing. Apart from that, the contributions to the team gave me immense satisfaction and eventually we went on to win the Ranji trophy. That was the most important thing, that's what we play for.

You picked up a quadriceps injury during the Ranji semi-final and had to miss the final. Is that injury still bothering you?It was very unfortunate, it was a freak injury. While getting down the stairs, I just slipped and tore my quadriceps. I was very disappointed not to play the Ranji final. It hurt me very badly because missing the Ranji final is something I never imagined. Sitting out in the final was the toughest thing. I have completely recovered form the injury and fit to play again. It has not hampered my keeping abilities. It was just a freak injury and it took me a couple of weeks to recover.

How difficult is it switching between formats?I mentioned on how to build an innings. That is the key to playing different formats. In day's cricket, you bat for time and overs, take it session by session. In T20 cricket, you play ball by ball, so it makes a lot of difference. At the end of the day's it's all about the mindset and your shot selection is very important when switching between formats. Probably in day's cricket, you play two or three shots the entire day. In T20 cricket, you tend to play six-seven shots. This is the important part. A week is enough to brush your skills and adjust to different formats.

Your thoughts on Mysuru Warriors heading into KPL as defending champions.Mysuru is a fantastic team and I am really happy to be in their side. The set-up is very good, the team management is very good. They have their own plans. I am really looking forward to be part of Mysuru Warriors camp. It will be a very good camp, I'm sure. We are defending the title and the pressure is on us now. The expectation is pretty high. So, we need to do well.

Being one of the senior players in the team, what role will you play?The role has not been defined yet, but as a senior player, I need to help the youngsters. Manish [Pandey] and I, we will have to hold the innings together. We have a pretty good team, so they can revolve around us and it will be fun (taking part in KPL).