Kolkata Knight Riders managed a straight-forward victory against Punjab Kings to turn around their woeful form this season. The bowlers put in excellent shifts and Captain Morgan did the job with the bat to pick up the side’s second win after four consecutive losses.
Speaking in the virtual press conference after the game, Eoin Morgan acknowledged the difficulty of the situation in India right now. The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has been extremely deadline and the healthcare sector has been completely overwhelmed. There is also an acute shortage of vaccines and oxygen in the country, leading to many deaths.
“It’s challenging and things have to be managed for the players and staff, and we know the horrific nature of what’s happening outside the bubble. We try and lend our support and we’ve seen how devastating it is not only in India but around the world,” said Morgan.
He also added that everyone needs to practice social distancing and wearing masks and it’s only together that the coronavirus pandemic can be curbed. If you’re going out stay safe, wear a mask, maintain social distance. We’ve seen huge amounts of tough times, even at home. On behalf of KKR we wish everyone well. If we can stick together, we can beat this thing.”
Kolkata Knight Riders have endured a tough season in the IPL so far. They have been outplayed and dominated by their opposition on several occasion and on quite a few instances, blunders from their own players have cost them heavily.
“Wins haven’t been easy to come by. Have worked incredibly hard. Nice to lead the team. We’ve worked incredibly hard, but didn’t perform as well as we would have liked initially. Today our performance was really, really impressive, especially from our bowlers and the way we started and kept the pressure throughout.
“On a wicket like that, in 12th or 13th over the ball continued to slide on and got better and better,” Morgan said in the post-match presentation.”
Young Shivam Mavi was fantastic tonight. He bowled his four overs at the very start of the innings and got the PBKS batsmen in a chokehold. He picked up the important wicket of Chris Gayle, sending him back for a duck and bowled 15 dot balls in his spell.
Praising the bowler, Morgan said, “Mavi was only in his second game this season, and bowling four together is something we don’t do this often. His match-up against Gayle was favourable. He had started well last game so huge credit to him.”
