‘Drop Chris & he’ll make you pay’
Kolkata Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir, on the losing side despite his second half-century on the trot, rued the let-off to Chris Gayle.
“If you drop someone like Chris, he will make you pay. He was also lucky on a number of occasions. Sometimes, he mis-hit the ball and it didn’t go to someone’s hands. But if you keep dropping catches, someone like Chris will always hurt you.”
Like Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, too, regretted the lapse in fielding.
Yusuf couldn’t deliver with the bat, but he tried to do his best by taking two wickets, that of Dinesh Karthik and Mandeep Singh.
He could well have been a hero for KKR had Morne Morkel not given Gayle a reprieve when the latter was on 63. But instead of blaming his teammate Morkel, Yusuf was all praise for Gayle who again almost single-handedly won the match for Royal Challengers Bangalore, here, at the Eden Gardens, on Saturday.
“You can lose matches if you drop a catch or two. But to be fair to Morne, no one drops catches intentionally,” Yusuf said.
“At the same time, we should try and make sure we don’t make these mistakes again. We obviously wouldn’t want these mistakes to happen at the business end of the tournament.
“But at the end of the day, you ought to give credit to Gayle. He was simply brilliant. I don’t think we did badly, but Gayle just took it away from us. He won the game in his individual capacity.
“They have three great batsmen in their ranks. If anyone of them clicks, he can win the game. I repeat, we didn’t play badly at all, but Gayle was simply sensational,” he added.
Yusuf said that the plan to bring in Sunil Narine as early as in the second over of the RCB innings was because of the presence of rival captain Virat Kohli as Gayle’s opening partner.
“Since Virat opened with Gayle, we thought our two best bowlers should start proceedings. I would say we did fairly well in this game,” he said.
On Narine once again going wicketless, Yusuf said: “It doesn’t matter if he’s not amongst wickets. The quality bowler that he is, we’re sure he will get things right later.
“It’s been just two matches and there are plenty more to come. Also, his remodelled action has nothing to do with it,” Yusuf retorted.
“It’s unfortunate that the move didn’t click… Would’ve been a masterstroke if it did.”
“If you drop someone like Chris, he will make you pay. He was also lucky on a number of occasions. Sometimes, he mis-hit the ball and it didn’t go to someone’s hands. But if you keep dropping catches, someone like Chris will always hurt you.”
Like Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, too, regretted the lapse in fielding.
Yusuf couldn’t deliver with the bat, but he tried to do his best by taking two wickets, that of Dinesh Karthik and Mandeep Singh.
He could well have been a hero for KKR had Morne Morkel not given Gayle a reprieve when the latter was on 63. But instead of blaming his teammate Morkel, Yusuf was all praise for Gayle who again almost single-handedly won the match for Royal Challengers Bangalore, here, at the Eden Gardens, on Saturday.
“You can lose matches if you drop a catch or two. But to be fair to Morne, no one drops catches intentionally,” Yusuf said.
“At the same time, we should try and make sure we don’t make these mistakes again. We obviously wouldn’t want these mistakes to happen at the business end of the tournament.
“But at the end of the day, you ought to give credit to Gayle. He was simply brilliant. I don’t think we did badly, but Gayle just took it away from us. He won the game in his individual capacity.
“They have three great batsmen in their ranks. If anyone of them clicks, he can win the game. I repeat, we didn’t play badly at all, but Gayle was simply sensational,” he added.
Yusuf said that the plan to bring in Sunil Narine as early as in the second over of the RCB innings was because of the presence of rival captain Virat Kohli as Gayle’s opening partner.
“Since Virat opened with Gayle, we thought our two best bowlers should start proceedings. I would say we did fairly well in this game,” he said.
On Narine once again going wicketless, Yusuf said: “It doesn’t matter if he’s not amongst wickets. The quality bowler that he is, we’re sure he will get things right later.
“It’s been just two matches and there are plenty more to come. Also, his remodelled action has nothing to do with it,” Yusuf retorted.
“It’s unfortunate that the move didn’t click… Would’ve been a masterstroke if it did.”