Gambhir praises bowlers after win over Sunrisers
bengaluru — Kolkata Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir credited his bowling unit for setting up the game for his side in the IPL Eliminator against defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad on Wednesday.
Two-time champions KKR defeated title holders Sunrisers by seven wickets in a rain-truncated match to enter the Qualifier 2 of IPL.
Opting to bowl first, KKR produced a disciplined bowling and fielding effort to first restrict Sunrisers to a modest 128 for seven and then overwhelmed the revised target of 48 in six overs with consummate ease.
“A lot of credit to the bowlers. They set the game up for us,” Gambhir said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
“The bowlers restricting the Sunrisers batting to 128 was brilliant. There have been times when we’ve lacked intensity. And every run we stop on the field is one less to score and all 11 players were up for that,” he said. He, however, was little disappointed with the batting effort while chasing the paltry revised target.
“We should have been more sensible with the batting, though,” Gambhir said.
“It was a much better wicket than we played RCB on. It was coming onto the bat nicely in our innings. I think if you target 160 you will get a good score. You can’t just go on looking for 200 every game.”
Kolkata Knight Riders now take on Mumbai Indians in the Qualifier 2 match in the same stadium on Friday. And it could also get tricky as Bangalore’s inclement weather puts doubts on conditions leading up to the match, especially since the Eliminator faced problems. Early in the season, heavy rain had played spoilsport as it caused the abandonment of the Royal Challengers Bangalore versus Sunrisers Hyderabad match on April 25 without a ball being bowled. On their last visit to the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on May 7, Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore by six wickets and would hope to make it three in row when they take on Mumbai.
“You do get nervous (about the rain) and we have played really well this season and our bowlers put in an unbelievable effort and if we had gone out after the rain, it wouldn’t have been good,” Gambhir said.
Sunrisers skipper David Warner feels they were 30 runs short of what would have been a defendable score on this wicket.
“We were 30 runs short. It was quite a tough wicket to bat on. The ball was holding up a bit. It’s been quite a disappointing wicket all season. And they bowled really well on it,” said Warner.
“The way we batted wasn’t good enough and six over games can be niggly. We had to come out with positive intent, got three wickets, but we knew they would come hard and it happened. We were good, as we were last time,” he added.
Warner said performances were just as good as in their 2016 title-winning season as he reflected on the season that saw Hyderabad finish third in the group standings.
“We were good, as we were last time. We found some good talent, we played some good cricket with bat and ball, whereas last year it was either bat or ball,” he said. “Thanks to all the people in Hyderabad, without you guys we wouldn’t be out here playing.” — Agencies