Kings XI Punjab full of confidence now, says David Hussey

Kings XI Punjab stand-in skipper David Hussey has said that his team is full of spirit after an emphatic win over Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in a crucial Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Wednesday.

The Punjab side jumped up to the fourth place following their four-wicket win in Bangalore. Batting first, the home side posted a handsome total of 158 on the board, thanks to superb batting by Chris Gayle and Virat Kohli.

The two top-order batsmen laid a solid foundation, but the lower-order batsmen failed to capitalise on a good start. Since the Royal Challengers could not get quick runs in the death overs, they fell short by 15-20 runs.

In reply, Mandeep Singh and Nitin Saini provided their side a great start. Hussey played a captain’s knock, adding crucial 45 runs to the total.

On the penultimate ball of the match, Piyush Chawla hit a superb six to steer his side home. Hussey was delighted to see his side improving day by day.

"We tried to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory .. but a win is a win. We have confidence now. We need to go back and perform in front of our home crowd. Momentum is a big part. We did well against Chennai and now we want to do even better when we go
to Mohali for the next game," he said.

Bangalore skipper Daniel Vettori was not reluctant to admit that his side was some runs short despite a fine effort by both Gayle (71) and Kohli (45).

He added, "The last five overs of both innings were interesting, lots of wickets lots of pressure. Only scoring 30 runs off our last five overs really hurt us. We’ve got some big games coming up, we need to get back on that roll of winning and make the semis."

Azhar Mehmood scooped the ‘Player of the Match’ award for his wonderful bowling. In his four overs, he grabbed three wickets for only 20 runs.

On his performance, Azhar stated, "Love it, I’m enjoying my cricket. Two big wins. quite pleased with the performance. We just believe in ourselves, we like each other’s company, each others’ success. Everyone’s working hard, it’s paying off."

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on May 3 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry