IPL 10, Match 47, Who Said What- Kings XI Punjab v Gujarat Lions

Gujarat Lions played party poopers for the Kings XI Punjab as after being knocked out of the race for the playoffs they travelled to Mohali and beat Punjab in a crucial game for the home team. Batting first Kings got off to a magnificent start with Hashim Amla playing some brilliant shots around the ground. Though Martin Guptill got out cheaply but the Amla-Shaun Marsh partnership ensured they well on course for a big total.

Amla completed a stupendous century in just 59 balls and one would imagine the kind of game he has, very gentle someone who relies more on his timing with emphasis on finding the gaps and not muscling the ball through. He played some unbelievable strokes using his strong yet flexible wrists to great effect.

Marsh registered another half century in the Punjab jersey and after Marsh got out skipper Glenn Maxwell also played his part with a quickfire cameo – 20 off 11 balls. 189 was a really good total considering how well the KXIP bowlers have bowled and how fragile Gujarat Lions have been with the bat.

‘Catches win matches’ and Kings dropped some straight forward catches to create troubles for themselves. David Miller who has had an ordinary IPL grassed Dwayne Smith and he made them pay for it with his knock of 74 scoring his runs at a strike rate of 189.74. Ishan Kishan got a start with his 29 but couldn’t score big skipper Suresh Raina and Dinesh Karthik contributed 39 and 35 as the target was just a matter of formality.

They got there with 6 wickets and a couple of balls in hand to add two points to their tally but more importantly deprived KXIP of an important win which would have propelled their chances of moving forward in the tournament.

Dwayne Smith for his counter attacking knock was named the Man of the match.

He said: “Still disappointed about my performances over the past games. I think my natural game is like that, it was just about staying out there as long as possible, and if I do that we’ll stay in front of the run rate. Real good pitch, judging from where I was fielding, I knew once I stay out there, runs will come for sure. We’re already out of the tournament, so we can’t worry about that, we just need to keep going on and look to damage some other teams as well.”

Though Gujarat are out of the tournament in the last edition of their existence but the skipper was pretty satisfied with the effort his boys put up to beat Punjab who have emerged as a formidable side especially at home in the last few outings.

Suresh Raina said: “Smithy and Ishan gave us the platform and later on me and DK had a good partnership. I think it was about six-over partnerships. Sandy and Mohit bowled brilliantly in between, but me and DK rotated the strike really well. When you’re chasing 190, you need a good start, and that’s what we’ve had in the last couple of matches. Too many injuries as a side. Still a good season for the youngsters.”

His team let Maxwell down today and when you drop easy catches and give lives to the opposition batters it is seldom that you make a comeback in the game and GL didn’t give KXIP that chance.

“Pretty devastating,” Glenn Maxwell described the defeat. “189 was enough, the bowlers and fielders let us down. We dropped three crucial catches. We haven’t won a heap of games in a row. We’ve had to scrap. Unfortunately, we’ll lose Hashim and David Miller now, and we’ll have to look deep in our reserves and regroup.”