Dinesh Karthik asked the team to be on their toes, reveals Sandeep Warrier

With only two games left to redeem themselves, the Kolkata Knight Riders faced the Kings XI Punjab at the PCA stadium in Mohali, on Friday. It was not all a walk in the park for the visiting team who had lost four of their last five matches. However, Dinesh Karthik & Co. were able to defeat hosts in their den as they claimed a convincing victory by a margin of 7 wickets (with 12 balls remaining).

It was Kerala’s 28-year-old right-arm medium bowler Sandeep Warrier who started off with uprooting the Punjab openers- Chris Gayle and KL Rahul – early in their innings. But with the progress of the game, the Kings XI Punjab batting became stronger with Nicholas Pooran and Mayank Agarwal also contributing in the middle.

Warrier revealed that seeing a strong partnership being build between the two middle-order batsmen, KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik got agitated and gathered the team and asked them to “be on their toes” during the first strategic time-out. “DK was just telling the players to be on their toes. That it was a must-win game and focus on every ball,” Warrier said after the game.

Warrier reveals how he bagged the wickets of Gayle and Rahul

The pacer who was playing just his second match of the season for KKR sported bowling figures of 2/31 and was the pick amongst the bowlers. 

“I was looking not to be predictable to Gayle and Rahul. The wicket was just holding at the start. My strength is swinging the ball and I was trying to do that by swinging it both ways initially and mixing it with slower ones. First two-three balls I was trying to swing it but it was not happening. So I decided to hit back of the length because it was not coming on to the bat easily. It was a bit hard to hit with the new ball and I stuck to that and it worked,” he added.

The Kolkata-based franchise, that is now placed at the fifth position on the IPL 2019 points table, still has a slim chance of qualifying for the playoffs. As of now, with 6 wins from 13 games, they have bagged 12 points and also have a final league stage fixture in hand against the Mumbai Indians on Sunday.

[interaction id=”5cc87a962ea93c1c050b5d16″]

Get the latest Cricket News and updates from the Indian Premier League, Match Predictions, Fantasy Cricket Tips and lots more on CricTracker.com.