Indian Premier League

The captain of Kolkata Knight Riders, Gautam Gambhir, has said that his side played inconsistent cricket right through the ongoing edition of IPL and that’s why, they couldn’t qualify for the play offs.

KKR had won the Indian Premier League last year and they had a great start this year as well. They had demolished Delhi Daredevils in their opening match. But, after that, they started struggling and ended up losing 10 out of their 16 matches in the preliminary round.

The Knight Riders finished at no. 7 in the points table after losing their last game against Sunrisers Hyderabad by 5 wickets.

Talking to the reporters in the press conference after that match, Gambhir said, “You can’t win a big tournament like IPL if you are inconsistent. We have been inconsistent right from the start of the tournament and that’s the reason why we have been knocked out.”

“In tonight’s game, I think we didn’t bowl in good areas in the first 10 overs and the Sunrisers’ openers took the game away from us.”

“130 was a decent score on this track. It was not that kind of a pitch where you could hit through the line. The ball was not coming on and boundary hitting was difficult.”

“If we hadn’t allowed their openers to tee off in the first 10 overs, we could have won the game.”

When asked if KKR is good playing on slow wickets only as they have a lot of slow bowlers in their bowling line up, Gambhir said, “I don’t think so. We had the same group of guys last year and we had won matches on hard, bouncy wickets as well. So, it’s unfair to say that we play well only on slow wickets.”

Video Rating: / five

The captain of Rajasthan Royals, Rahul Dravid, has admitted that his team needs a bit of improvement in bowling department.

The Royals won their first match in the ongoing IPL against Delhi daredevils on Saturday. They won that match by just 5 runs.

At one stage in the match, the Rajasthan bowlers were struggling to stop Delhi batsmen from hitting boundaries. In the middle overs of the innings, there were quite a few boundaries hit and Daredevils were very close to the target at the end of the 18^th over. They just had to score 17 runs in the remaining two overs.

David Warner was batting at his best and Delhi was clearly the favourite when the 19^th over began. But, the last two overs turned the match upside down.

Rahul Shukla, a youngster from Jharkhand, was asked to bowl the 19^th over and he did the job superbly for his skipper. He hit the yorker length more often than not in that over and gave away only 8 runs. David Warner also ran himself out on the third ball of that over which pushed Delhi back.

If the 19^th over was a good one, the 20^th bowled by Kevon Cooper was even better. The tall West Indian all rounder dismissed Johan Botha and Andre Russel on the 3^rd and the 5^th ball of that over respectively and gave away only 3 runs to ensure the victory for Royals.

In the post match press conference, Rahul Dravid said, “Frankly speaking, our bowling was not that good in the first 10 overs. We bowled quite a few loose balls and allowed them to maintain a very good run rate.”

“However, the boys kept their nerve at the end and pulled that off. It’s really nice to be on the winning side in the first match.”

Online video Ranking: 3 / five

The Indian top order batsman, Cheteshwar Pujara, has said that he is delighted that his partnership with Murali Vijay has put the Indian team on the driving seat in the second test match against Australia.

Pujara completed the second double hundred of his test career in the first session of the third day’s play. However, immediately after scoring his double ton, he got out off a short rising delivery from James Pattinson.  Earlier, he had hit a similar delivery from Peter Siddle for a six over square leg. But, this time around, he didn’t manage to time his hook shot well and the fielder at the long leg boundary took a good, low catch.

But, before getting out, Pujara had done enough damage. After Pujara’s dismissal, the Indian batting order collapsed and the next 7 wickets fell pretty quickly. But, Pujara’s knock had already put India in a great position. India got a lead of 266 runs in the first innings and before the end of the third day’s play, the Indian bowlers had already sent a couple of Australian top order batsmen to the pavilion.

Pujara came to talk to the reporters in the press conference after the end of the third day’s play. He said, “It’s great that I scored another big knock on this ground. This has been a special venue for me so far.”

“I am happy that because of my partnership with Vijay, my team is in a great position right now. However, the game is not over yet. We still have to get 8 wickets. But, the way the ball is turning, it will be difficult for their batsmen to negotiate our spinners tomorrow.”

During this inning, Pujara also completed his 1000 runs in test match cricket.

Video Rating: four / 5