We badly wanted this win: Murali Vijay

Kings XI Punjab registered a consolation win today after they beat the surging Delhi Daredevils tea, by 9 runs at their home venue. The Punjab side had a wonderful day in the field and would hope for similar performances for the rest of the tournament. Batting first, KXIP put up 181/5 after 20 overs after the DD side chose to field first after winning the toss. All-rounders Marcus Stoinis (52 from 44 balls) and Wriddhiman Saha (52 from 33 balls) played wonderfully and were the top performers with the bat. In reply, the DD side began really well with openers Quinton de Kock and Sanju Samson putting on a 70 run opening stand. The visitors continued steadily until the KXIP bowlers pulled back in the middle overs. The crucial wickets of Sam Billings and Carlos Brathwaite made things worse for the chasing side. Mohit Sharma and Sandeep Sharma then took control in the penultimate and final of the match to finish the match in the favor of KXIP.

Losing skipper Zaheer Khan said that the wicket played a huge role today. Zaheer said: It was a good game. 180 was just about par and I thought we had it under control. The ball was reversing and good death-bowling I would say. It is a big ground and few errors on the field are bound to him. Overall, I felt the wicket was playing well. We had a perfect start, but it was one of the days where we did not cross the line.

Winning skipper is one inspirational guy. Murali Vijay: We badly wanted this win. I can’t ask more than this because they gave it everything. We said 170 was par and we got 10 runs extra. There was dew factor but amazing bowling from the bowlers. I just told them to keep believing in their skills and not think about the batsmen. With Mohit and Sandeep, I was confident. The way they are bowling and controlling the innings is unbelievable.

Marcus Stoinis was adjudged as the Man of the Match for his all-round performance. Stoinis said:“It’s good to be involved. You get opportunities to make things happen…and hit it out of the park. You are not always hitting the ball as good as you want to. The art is to grind it out when it’s not coming out. We talked to the skipper that when someone goes hard at you, you always have a chance. We have to keep training hard to continue like this.”