Yuzvendra Chahal's five-wicket haul turned the table and KKR's head coach Brendon McCullum opened up on their performance in the game.
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Kolkata Knight Riders were on the verge of winning against Rajasthan Royals on Monday while chasing a target of 218 in IPL 2022 when Aaron Finch and Shreyas Iyer were in the middle at the Brabourne Stadium. However, they lost by 7 runs. KKR, who required 40 to win from 24 with six wickets in hand, failed to score, courtesy of Yuzvendra Chahal, whose five-wicket haul turned the table. KKR’s head coach Brendon McCullum opened up on their performance in the game.
“With four overs to go, we were in the driver’s seat but then some silly mistakes and not being able to handle pressure as well as we should have cost us the game,” said KKR’s head coach Brendon McCullum after the game on Monday (April 18).
He continued, “From our point of view, we’ve had three losses in a row and we’re going to have to find a way to keep our morale high which is so vitally important. There can be a tendency to run away from things when you haven’t got across the line in a couple of key games. We just have to keep pushing ourselves, make sure we stick together and stay composed. We’ve been there before and it’s going to test us again this time.”
READ MORE: IPL 2022 RR vs KKR: Yuzvendra Chahal, Jos Buttler plant nail-biting win for Rajasthan Royals
KKR made some changes to their batting unit where Sunil Narine opened with Aaron Finch, Shreyas Iyer came at No.3, Andre Russell came in at No.5, Venkatesh Iyer at No.6, and Pat Cummins at No.9 as well.
“Narine and Finch at the top was a good opportunity. We knew the wicket was good here, it was going to be a high-scoring game and we know how Sunil Nairne plays, but he didn’t even get to face a ball tonight. That can happen, but Aaron Finch and Shreyas Iyer were absolutely brilliant at the top of the order for us. We also wanted to give Venkatesh the option in the middle against spin in particular against Ashwin and Chahal as he’s a very good player of spin and with one short side, we wanted to try and maximize that,” Brendon McCullum again shared.
However, Yuzvendra Chahal conceded 38 runs in three overs before he was brought back one last time for the 17th over. He had claimed the wicket of Nitish Rana earlier but picked up another four wickets in the 17th over, including a hat-trick and dismantled the batting attack as well.
“We were trying to hold Pat Cummins for the seamers,” he explained. “Chahal has had a number on him on a number of occasions. Mavi’s role was to get through that. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to execute what we were meant to do there and we made a mistake. You can’t allow good players like Chahal to enter the game when there’s pressure on. We played a good game but just made a couple of silly mistakes. But that’s what happens sometimes. Jos Buttler got a hundred on their side, Yuzi Chahal got a five-for including a hat-trick and we lost by seven runs, so we played a good game but ran second.”
However, despite their third successive loss, McCullum backed the team and he also praised Chahal, who changed the fortune of the game as well.
“We needed 40 off 4 and we had 5-6 wickets in hand and we were very much in charge of the game. Credit to Chahal, he’s an absolute brilliant bowler and he’s one of those guys who isn’t bothered by pressure situations. We had talked extensively leading into the game about how he was such a threat and we didn’t want to give him wickets in key moments in games. If we had our time again, we’d have looked to play that over differently and we saw the impact he can have against the seamers in the last couple of overs with the ball sliding on,” Brendon McCullum concluded.
