Kolkata: Kolkata Knight Riders coach Dav Whatmore was thrilled after a hard-fought win over Delhi Daredevils. He spoke to the media after a famous win.
Excerpts
On KKR's fielding
Fielding certainly made a difference, I wouldn’t say a big difference but it certainly helped us create the victory. I thought our bowling was pretty good in certain parts and it was very well supported by the field. And it’s great to get run-outs and it was great to see some really good stops that could have easily have gone for four and [they] had done so in the past. So yeah, the fielding effort was terrific, I was very happy.
On Gautam Gambhir’s run-out being the turning point
Yeah that was the turning point, absolutely. He was batting very well - to get the run out, a direct hit, was wonderful and [Ganguly] did a terrific job.
On KKR playing too many dot balls in the first six overs
I think you need to appreciate the sort of batsmen that we have, it’s very unfair I think to compare our openers with certain openers in other teams. And if you expect our batsmen to play in a way in which you fancy an opposition opening pair to play then it’s going to be, you’re not going to be happy about it. We have strengths, [Chris] Gayle and Ganguly have their strengths and you’ve seen what they are. But during the course of those first six overs there will be some dot balls, because they are different from others.
On the Sehwag-Gambhir partnership
Our feeling was that, they always need to hit the ball in the air to get victory. And singles weren’t going to do the trick and they needed to hit boundaries, they needed to hit them in the air. So I was just thinking, if they just take the catches and do the basics correctly in the field, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to put pressure on them.
On David Warner
Yeah he [Ashoke Dinda] worked on Warner, he did a great job.
On Ashoke Dinda
Ashoke Dinda has always had the physical presence, which is a wonderful thing to have, it’s very contagious. You have seen the way he’s played […] and it’s terrific to have a fellow who can run in and give you every ounce of effort with every ball that he bowls, regardless of when. And I am very pleased for him getting the reward and going a long way to helping us winning the game.
On the win
If we didn’t win this one then we’d be really struggling, so it was an extremely important game for our franchise.
On the areas the team has worked on since the loss in the previous game
The last 4 games we’ve made a 180 three times and 200 once, so that’s a very pleasing aspect. We felt that two of those games we lost [because of] an opposition player who scored a hundred, Warner and [Mahela] Jayawardene. So we knew that our statistics were still good, our statistics were probably the best team in the competition to restrict the opposition between overs 16 to 20. And we did that again today it was a very low total and we got wickets and we did a good job in that period. So it was a case of just sticking to know what we do well. Apart from one or two games, we felt the result was taken away from us by an individual so the boys are still good.
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