Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Nitish Rana has urged his bowlers to raise their game after they suffered a 5-wicket defeat to Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday.
KKR scored 185/6 after being invited to bat first by Mumbai Indians’ stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav. Venkatesh Iyer smashed a century, but none of the rest of the batting lineup could provide him support. Iyer scored 104 runs in 51 balls, but after him, the second-highest run-scorer was Andre-Russell who added 21 runs to the cause.
The Caribbean all-rounder tried his best but was kept at bay by some bowling in the death overs by Riley Meredith.
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Mumbai Indians subsequently began their chase as they came flying out of the blocks, Rohit came on as an impact-sub to partner Kishan, and they put together an opening stand of 65 runs. Kishan would go on to score his fifty, Suryakumar Yadav scored 43 runs while Tim David returned unbeaten at 24 as he helped the five-time IPL champs pick up their second win of IPL 2023.
After the defeat, Rana conceded that his side could’ve performed better as he demanded better performances from his bowling unit.
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“They targeted our best bowlers and it paid off for them. We could have done better in the powerplay. I would want my bowling unit to deliver more. Anyone can have a bad game or two but it is happening consistently with us. We will go back to the dressing room and talk about it” said Rana during his post-match interview.
The KKR skipper also said that he felt bad for Iyer who scored a ton but couldn’t prevent his side from losing the match. Iyer was the second-only player from KKR since Brendon McCullum to score a century in IPL, there was a gap of 15 years between the two tons but Nitish Rana said that going forward he expects more tons from his teammates.
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“I think we were 15-20 runs short. Credit to PC bhai (Piyush Chawla) for the way he bowled. Feel bad for Venky, he scored a hundred, played so well but finished on the losing side. The whole team knows this was the second hundred for a player from KKR. Other players from our side will also score hundreds going forward,” added the 29-year-old.
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