Mascarenhas Happy With Underdog Tag - AllOutCricket.com 25/8/12

So Dimi, what’s the mood in the camp like ahead of Finals Day?Pretty good to be honest, we finished off the group games well – we needed to, so that turned out good for us. We’ve had a good run in all the other competitions leading up to Finals Day and it’s always nice to be in winning form going into a semi-final.

All six of your wins in the competition have come chasing down totals. How do you feel about the prospect of setting a target?Good, we’ve set a target a few times in the CB40 so we’re pretty happy about that. I think on Finals Day there’ll be no difference. We’ll get to see the wicket play before our semi-final, which is always helpful. We don’t mind and personally I actually like batting first. But I think we’re very capable of doing both.

Who are the key men for you? Neil McKenzie looks in good nick…He’s huge. When you look at our side, we’ve been lucky enough to have five or six young 22-and-under players in the last few years and they’ve been very good at different times, but when it’s come to the big games it’s been the experienced players that have got us over the line. McKenzie, [Simon] Katich, [Sean] Ervine – they’re the three I’ll be looking at to put in a really good performance.

You’re up against Somerset in the semi-final. What are your thoughts on them as a team?They’re a very, very dangerous team. They’ve got the best county player going in [Marcus] Trescothick. From my point of view he’s easily the best player in the country. He’s the dangerman but they’re dangerous the whole way down. We’ve been lucky enough to see them quite a few times over the last few years and had some really close games so we’re not going into it blind – we know exactly what they’ve got. I’m expecting another close one.

Jos Buttler is someone you’ll presumably be keeping a close eye on?Yes, massively. Last year he played a really good innings against us to get them pretty much over the line. We’ve seen a lot of him on television; he’s a gun player. Coming in in that middle order where it’s hard to score, he seems to deal with it with ease. We’ve got to find a way of stopping him.

Do you think you have a psychological edge having beaten them in the 2010 final?Not really because last year we had the super over and they won that in the semi-final. In that respect it’s sort of 1-1. I don’t think there’s ever a psychological advantage, it’s just whoever plays the best on the day that wins the game. They’ve got some experience and some youngsters, and we’ve got similar. They’ve been to Finals Day four years in a row and we’ve been three. Everyone in our squad’s been to Finals Day apart from Simon Katich, and he’s played on the biggest stage with 50-odd Test matches for Australia.

If you do get through, do you have a preference on how you want to face in the final?On paper and on form we’re probably the worst of the four teams. Those guys have played some really good cricket and are dominating teams, whereas we’ve just got over the line here and there. We’re just happy to be here. When Somerset came up we were happy with that, if it had been anyone else we’d have been happy with that as well. We’ve played Sussex enough, we’ve played them lots, but we’ve never played Yorkshire in a Twenty20 so let’s go for a Hampshire v Yorkshire final!

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