Chennai, May 28: His bat was petty much silent right through the tournament. He got the starts and failed to build on them. While his teammates kept producing special performances and the side made steady progress, he made up his mind that it was time he produced something special. And he chose the grand finale to score big. Murali Vijay’s 52-ball knock of 95 was the foundation on which the Chennai Super Kings built yet another castle of victory, fiercely guarding their home record and winning their second consecutive IPL title. Pleased with his effort, the stylish opening batsman from Tamil Nadu and Man-of-the-Match in the big final thanked his team for giving him the confidence to play such a blinder. On whether there was any competition between him and Michael Hussey while they batted together First of all, I’m very happy with the victory. Secondly, Mike Hussey is nowhere near to being competition for me. He’s someone I look up to and the world knows how good a player he is. It’s been a team effort and I’m just happy being a part of this unit. On the hard running between the wickets between him and Hussey Personally, I was missing out on a lot of singles in the previous games. Hussey is a very good timer of the ball and today I made a conscious effort to play such that I run a lot of singles for myself and for him. And it proved to be useful to the team’s cause. On whether he saved his best for the final Honestly, I was timing the ball well, so I wasn’t too worried about it. My only worry was not being able to convert the 30s and 40s into big scores. I [figured] everyone was contributing to the team and it’s high time I too raised my game and did something special for the team. Today I was happy that I was able to go out there and express myself. On whether he did anything differently in the final One thing I did differently today was not try to do anything different. I just saw the ball and tried to hit it on its merit. I just thought if I could stay there in the first six overs, I could take it forward from there. It was all about the basics. On how high he would rate this performance It’s up there. It was a very crucial match, the final of the tournament. And I want to thank my teammates for their support without which it would have been very difficult for me to play in the way I did. We’ve all been working really hard and have stuck together as a family. We have a fantastic environment in the team. On being disappointed on missing out on a century Now, I am a bit. But at that time I was just trying to hit the ball and score as many as possible because I thought 220 would be a good score on this wicket and especially when you have someone like Chris Gayle in the opposite side, everything can be chaseable. On whether pressure got the better of him and led to his dismissal If I said I was not under pressure, I’d be lying. It was the final and everyone felt the pressure of the big game. But for us as professionals the real challenge is to cope with that pressure and I’m glad that we’ve done that as a team. On whether the knock would help his confidence in the West Indies series I’m just enjoying this moment. I am working hard on my game and trying to improve all aspects of my batting. Right now I just want to take a break and then join the Indian team for the Test series because in the end, that’s the format I really love. On how confident the team feels knowing they have a spinner like R Ashwin who can deliver consistently with the new ball It gives us a lot of confidence. He’s been bowling really well since the last few months, at the domestic level as well as in the IPL. He’s been my fellow state player and it feels great to see him doing so well in international cricket and in the IPL. I really want him to achieve a lot more in his career because I know how hard he has been working for it. On whether, after defending the IPL title, CSK are ready to defend their CLT20 title as well There’s still a long way to go for that. We’re enjoying this moment and we don’t want to think about the CLT20 right now. When it comes, we’ll make sure we’re fully prepared.