Having returned with figures of 6/110 and 8/60 in Karnataka's opening round Ranji Trophy win over Tamil Nadu besides contributing a half-century, Krishnappa Gowtham felt delighted as he rated this spell and all-round performance as one of the best of his career so far. 

Gowtham enabled Karnataka's victory in a low-scoring thriller in Dindigul by just 26 runs, helping it gain six crucial points in the elite group. 

WATCH - Krishnappa Gowtham takes the final wicket in the last over to win the game for Karnataka

"I don’t think there was anything else left to do," he was quoted as saying by Sportstar. "I gave it all. Travelling 10 hours by road [after his wedding last Saturday] to come out here…I wanted to give it my all. I pride myself on being a team man. This is one of the best spells I have bowled. It is not easy against Tamil Nadu, who are good players of spin. So you feel good about yourself when you take a fifer against them."

Gowtham kept it simple, backed his strengths and got the rewards. "That is the reason why they [TN] found it difficult perhaps," he said. "You don’t need to have 10 different deliveries. You need to have one delivery which is really lethal. You then need to vary your speed, line and length. That is good enough for a bowler." 

Tamil Nadu had picked up four spinners in its line-up, including the mighty Ravichandran Ashwin. But Gowtham out-performed all of them. "I enjoy it more when the pressure and responsibility is on me. I am fortunate that things are working out well," he said, having enjoyed dismissing veteran Dinesh Karthik the most. "He(Karthik) missed the line completely. He is a great player of spin. He was the biggest threat for us. He takes the game deep. His wicket was the turning point."

"None of us had any doubt (defending 180 in the final innings). From being nowhere, we reached a position from where we couldn’t lose. So that itself set it up for us in terms of belief. We never had a thought about not winning the game," Gowtham concluded. 

(Inputs from Sportstar)