Have more faith on my bowlers: Gautam Gambhir

Kolkata Knight Riders skipper Gautam Gambhir revealed in the post-match conference that he had no specific plans against MS Dhoni. He furthered explained that the attacking field set for him can be attributed to the fact that spinners were getting good assistance from the pitch.

Gambhir quashed all claims of him being arrogant or too strategic against the Rising Pune Supergiants skipper MS Dhoni. He said it wouldn’t have mattered had there been any other batsman at that stage at the crease. “I have more confidence in the bowlers, always see who the bowler is not the batsman. I have a lot of trust in Piyush [Chawla] and [Sunil] Narine. I did not think it was MS [Dhoni],” quoted Gautam Gambhir.

Interestingly, his teammate Ankit Rajpoot cited that Gambhir wanted to take complete control of the situation and lauded the skipper’s move to cover MS Dhoni. “Ball was turning and spinners were getting a lot of help. So we thought of setting an attacking field against Mahibhai,” said Rajpoot.

“We wanted to create pressure and get him out early to brighten our prospects. Left-handers have it easy, while Mahibhai being a right-hander we wanted to go for an attacking field,” added the Kolkata Knight Riders bowler.

The move by the KKR skipper surely worked as MS Dhoni was found struggling at the crease during his 22-ball 8-run knock at Kolkata. Incidentally, this was not the first time that Gambhir had set an attacking field for Dhoni.

The left-handed Delhi batsman had previously set such field for MS Dhoni during their previous encounter at Pune and also in the last season of the IPL. In domestic cricket too, Gambhir had set an attacking field for Dhoni in the Vijay Hazare trophy. Whether it was his planned strategy by him for MS Dhoni or his usual way of dealing with the Indian limited overs skipper, the move certainly worked well for the Knight Riders on the night when it mattered.

Gautam Gambhir loves MS Dhoni. Doesn't he? #IPL #KKRvRPS pic.twitter.com/ieuVGucZL6

— Sampath Bandarupalli (@SampathStats) May 14, 2016

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