Simmons and I have gelled well: Parthiv Patel

Mumbai Indians have scripted a fabulous turnaround. After slipping to five defeats in their first six games, they won seven of their final eight fixtures to finish second in the league phase. On Tuesday, at the Wankhede Stadium, the 2013 champions completed a convincing 25-run win over arch-rivals Chennai Super Kings to qualify for their third IPL final.

At the heart of the turnaround is the swing in fortunes of a certain Parthiv Patel, whose association at the top of the order with Lendl Simmons has been chiefly responsible for Mumbai Indians' renaissance. After the win over CSK in the first qualifier, Parthiv revealed that the team never let the pressure of their early season table position get to them and instead approached each game as a new start.

"We were not taking the pressure of having to win nine matches, we were just taking it one game at a time and that's how we planned," Parthiv told iplt20.com. "We know well about this tournament; if you get on a roll you win a lot of matches and we knew we could qualify for the final. We did our planning well and executed it brilliantly."

The diminutive left-hander, who has 339 runs at an impressive strike-rate of 139.50, credited his partnership with Simmons for the turnaround in the team's fortunes. "I think openers in any format, if they play well they set the platform for the big-hitters that come in to bat later and I am glad that I could play a part in it. Simmons and I pace our innings well. Whenever, whichever one of us gets off to a good start, the other tries to rotate the strike and give more strike to the person timing the ball well. And we have gelled well together."

"The first six overs are important. Once you get through that you make sure that you keep rotating and try and play 10-12 overs. If an opener bats deep he always gets big runs and if you look at the stats whenever an opener has batted deep the team has got bigger scores."

Parthiv also had words of praise for head coach Ricky Ponting, who he believes has been a vital cog in inspiring the tea perform to its potential. "He (Ricky) has been a great help," Parthiv said. "I have played against him, he is always aggressive, always busy on the field. He has been the same as a coach. He always wanted us to be aggressive and always wanted us to back ourselves."

Now that they've qualified for the final, Parthiv reckoned that the team wouldn't try to do anything drastically different just because it was the final. "We will just stay calm. We believe that big matches and pressure situations get the best out of us and hence we will try and stay calm."