Gautam Gambhir reveals why he set an aggressive field for Dhoni

Dec 23, 2018 at 11:07 AM

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Gautam Gambhir reveals why he set an aggressive field for Dhoni

Rising Pune Supergiants(RPS) are officially out of the tournament as they surrendered to Gautam Gambhir’s Kolkata Knight Riders.

RPS winning the toss elected to bat first. Under humid evening, bowlers used the conditions well to bamboozle RPS batsmen. RPS in 18 overs crawled to a paltry score of 103 runs.

KKR batsmen Yusuf Pathan and Manish Pandey’s gutsy batting helped their team to score 66 runs in five overs. As evening downpour forced umpire to stop the match KKR win the match by DL method.

After winning the match, Gautam Gambhir praised his spinners,  “I have been losing a lot of tosses. We were looking to bat first as well. I have lost 8 out of 11 tosses. But things have been going well. So hopefully it can continue that way. Hopefully, when the crunch situation comes I can win tosses. The bowlers were very professional. To restrict them to such a score given their batting was unbelievable on this wicket. Quality spinners do not need surfaces. They can beat batsmen in the air. We have 3 quality spinners.”

“I have trust in Sunil and Piyush. We still have a long way to go and I don’t want to jinx it (Pathan’s form), I hope he continues the same way and takes us a long way in the tournament,” two-time IPL winning KKR captain said.

The KKR captain was also asked why did he set an aggressive field for  Dhoni, who scored eight runs off 22 balls, Gambhir said,  “I always see who the bowler is and what kind of rhythm he is in (on his aggressive field placings to Dhoni). I don’t set fields looking at who the batsman is.”

“I think looking at the wicket and how it slowed down as the ball got old, close to 135-140 would have been a good score. We kept losing wickets in the middle and kept piling more and more pressure on the lower order. It’s important for someone from the top order to bat through on a wicket like this to give the liberties to the lower order to play their shots. Getting some kind of partnership going on slow wickets is important. It’s important to play freely even when you’re bowling. Even in the first innings we saw that it got more difficult as the ball got older. We can’t control the weather and this time we were at the receiving end so fair enough. Two more to go..” says a surprisingly jaunty Dhoni, especially when a team captained by him has not made the play-offs of the IPL – the first time that has happened.

However, RPS spinner Ravichandran Ashwin gave a good start as he removed both KKR openers in the very first over.

Suddenly, the target of 66 looked ominous but Yusuf Pathan demolished any hopes that Pune fostered. He hit a boisterous 37* off 18 deliveries and it was a canter in the end. So, KKR took one further step towards the play-offs and Pune will go to the drawing board and sort out their combinations for the next year.

KKR batsman Yusuf Pathan was adjudged man of the match for his 18 balls 37 run innings.

After receiving the award he said, “I have been batting well and at crucial junctures too. When you win a match like the one against RCB, it gives you a lot of confidence. I am happy. I am not thinking much, and I am making the opposition think. That feels good.”

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