KKR’s Chris Woakes feels that they fell 15-20 runs short of a competitive target

Rahul Tripathi took Rising Pune Supergiant to their seventh win of the season with his 52-ball 93 at the Eden Gardens. Tripathi, who plays for Maharashtra Cricket Association in the domestic circuit, has been the find of IPL 10 with his consistent performances. KKR’s Chris Woakes who was the most successful bowler for his team was impressed with Tripathi’s skills.

Being asked to bat first the Knight Riders lost early wickets and didn’t manage to stitch a big partnership which saw them post a mediocre 155 on the board after 20 overs. Woakes highlighted how KKR failed to get a good start, which has been their strength this season, and also regular loss of wickets that pushed them on the backfoot

“I suppose we didn’t quite get going in that powerplay. Though, we made up a bit towards the end of the powerplay but losing three wickets in the powerplay pushed us behind a little bit. When you keep on losing wickets in T20 cricket, it’s hard to post a decent score. In the end, we were probably 15-20 runs short and that was below par and unfortunately it wasn’t an ideal score,” he said.

KKR missed the services of their wicket-keeper batsman Robin Uthappa, speaking about Robin’s absence, Woakes said, “It’s a big void for us. He scored a lot of runs for us this tournament and is up there with the leading scorers of the tournament. Fingers crossed, he’s not out for too long and is back for the next game.”

Sunil Narine has impressed one and all with his all-round performances this year. Narine, who had opened the batting for his team Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League, has proved a terrific, hard-hitting opening batsman for the Knights as well. But he failed against RPS. Talking about Narine’s batting position, Woakes opined that the pinch hitter has given some good starts to the team this was a rare failure for him.

“He has come off on few occasions where he has been off to flying start and scored some good scores and also it allowed us to set some good totals as well. He is a good player who can be used up the order. Occasionally, he isn’t going to come off and it was a bit unfortunate they got him in the first over,” Woakes said.

He was also full of praises for Tripathi’s knock, also regretting that he dropped his catch to give the youngster an extended life on the pitch. He hailed the RPS opener’s temperament and his ability to negotiate both spin and seam.

“I think it’s always difficult to stop a player on his day. Unfortunately we gave Warner couple of chances that day, I dropped him as well. When you give good players opportunities to score runs, they take full advantage. We didn’t do that today, we didn’t drop any chances. Tripathi played a fantastic knock, he played very very well and credit to him, he puts in the the pressure, he attacks the new ball. When the spinners came on he cleared the ropes, he hit some good boundaries.” Woakes concluded.