Russell and Billings steer Kolkata to victory after the loss of four early wickets
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00:00I was surprised the way the match turned out today. Initially, Raja Paksha was going great guns and suddenly the slump…
00:15Hello everyone. Welcome to Straight Bad with Gulf News and Mr Cricket UAE. That is Anish Sajan.
00:20We are here to discuss Kolkata Knight Riders' resounding win over the Punjab Kings.
00:25Anish Bhai, what do you make of the match?
00:28Hello to all the beautiful people of Gulf News. Hello, Mr Shyam. To be very honest, I was surprised the way the match turned out today.
00:35Initially, Raja Paksha was going great guns and suddenly the slump and the way the team Punjab was batting,
00:44it looked that they will fold under 100 and then we see Rabada scoring the runs and in the end, they got bowled out in 18 overs.
00:51And when the chase happened, KKR lost quick wickets but it was the Russell show which stalled the game.
00:59Yes, you are right. Plenty of ups and downs in this match. But one of the things I noticed was in the Punjab's innings,
01:06they kept the big-hitter Odin Smith very down the order. Don't you think it was too late for him to do anything?
01:13It was absolutely ridiculous. You know, if you are chasing a target, you keep him lower down the order.
01:18But if you are setting a target and you know that you have lost wickets, I think that's the only thing the coach must have thought that they want to keep him.
01:25But in the end, it was Rabada who did the hitting and Odin Smith had nothing to play.
01:30He didn't even get a strike actually.
01:32Sometimes, he just baffled me.
01:35Actually, I thought even Mayank's captaincy throughout was pretty bad in the sense like when Russell was on a rampage, they were all bowling into his hitting areas.
01:45I mean, you know what, he is a new captain. As much as you would be critical of him, this is his second game.
01:50I don't remember him captaining when he sighed. He is going to learn a lot in this tournament.
01:54And Punjab's problem throughout, if you watch their history, has been their captainship problem.
01:58Whether it was KL Rahul or if you go in the past, they have had captainship problems.
02:02And when they come across such a situation where they have lost the toss and they got a start.
02:07If they did not get a start, you can understand. They were blazing away when Rajapaksha was batting.
02:11So, it was about some sensible batting.
02:13But I have no idea. I don't want to take anything away from Umesh Yadav who was the guy who broke the back of Punjab.
02:22But in the end, it was not a wicket which was unbattable.
02:26Everybody could bat. We could see that.
02:28Even Rabada could score runs. Why the other guys couldn't?
02:31Absolutely. It is just a question of application.
02:34You are bang on because Punjab were 6-3 for 3 in 6 overs.
02:39They had a very healthy score at the end of powerplay.
02:42And they just unravelled after that.
02:45Now, coming to that, you could see the huge difference in captainship.
02:50Shreyas Iyer, I thought, despite all these issues.
02:54I respect Lee King's runs early on.
02:57He captained the side very well and he ranked the bowlers very well.
03:01I thought it was quite impressive.
03:03What do you make of his bowling changes?
03:05Shyam, I will be very honest. We discussed this earlier also.
03:09He is a captain for India for the future.
03:12Not because he won this match or he probably took it nicely, the game.
03:16But I see India should hand over to him the white ball captainship as soon as possible.
03:21I know Rohit wants to do the white ball captainship. India has made him.
03:25In fact, all formats.
03:27But if you want to groom somebody like how Virat was groomed, Iyer is the right guy.
03:30Should immediately make him the vice-captain.
03:32I know Panth is the vice-captain.
03:33But I am not sure how it is going to go about.
03:35But this guy is street smart.
03:37Yeah, absolutely.
03:39He had bowled all his frontline bowlers by the 17th over.
03:44Because he was just searching for wickets.
03:46He just wanted to close out the match as early as possible.
03:48Which was very, very impressive, I thought.
03:50When he went for the jugular.
03:52He could go for the kill and not wait for Christmas.
03:54Absolutely, yes.
03:56Another thing which baffled me was Livingston's approach.
04:00We know he is a very good hitter.
04:02Very clean hitter.
04:03But I thought he had very poor match sense today.
04:06Well, you are absolutely right, Shyam.
04:09We have seen with players who come with big prizes, money.
04:12They do well in different conditions.
04:14But what happens to them in the IPL?
04:16And especially for Punjab.
04:17We have seen with Puran.
04:18We have seen with Maxwell in the past.
04:20And now Livingston, even though it is only two games.
04:22And this was a time where you caught a start of 10-11 runs.
04:26It is not that you have got an average of 5.
04:28There was enough time.
04:29But in the end, if you see Rabada scoring,
04:31that really must be pinching all the Punjab fans.
04:34Absolutely.
04:36Because he scored with such ridiculous ease, actually.
04:38And okay, having done that, Punjab got off to a good start.
04:44In fact, they had four wickets in by a decent margin.
04:47And in fact, they were very much in the game before Russell came in.
04:51And they were one batsman caught, mind you, today.
04:54They did not have Jackson.
04:55So it was all Russell.
04:57And if Russell would have failed, who knows what would have happened.
04:59But that is the way this IPL has gone.
05:01Trust me, picking a winner is a lottery.
05:03You do not know how the way the match swings.
05:05But I like the gamble.
05:07I think in a match like this, you need to gamble.
05:10You need to take that risk.
05:12I think it worked well for Calcutta.
05:14Of course, if they had lost, they would have blamed him.
05:16But the thing is, that is the part of the game.
05:19This shows the will to win.
05:22There is a thin line between risk-free and, as you can say, careless cricket.
05:27If Russell would have gone out, probably we would have been saying what happened to KKR.
05:32That is the way you look at the second game.
05:35They batted only 18 overs.
05:37But nonetheless, when you win, you have to give credit.
05:42So, I think, where does Punjab go from here?
05:45Because we thought at least this time they had a better team or more balanced team.
05:50But they are slipping back to their old habits.
05:53I will probably give them one match benefit of the doubt that they are batting first.
05:57I want to see teams like Chennai at least score 200s.
06:00I want to give at least some competition if they bat first.
06:04They just can't throw in the towel if they bat second.
06:06That's true.
06:10I think we have pretty much touched everything today.
06:13And I think Russell has sorted out everything.
06:16And he didn't leave much for us to talk about other than him.
06:19When Russell is not strong, you can't do anything.
06:21Absolutely.
06:23He just sorted out the match.
06:26There is nothing left to talk about it.
06:28Now, can we hear about the competition and the prizes?
06:32Yes.
06:34As we know that Gulf News is giving out for winners a complete match apparel.
06:43Which is a t-shirt, track and a cap for guessing the right winner.
06:47And tomorrow we have two games.
06:49The first game I believe is…
06:51I am not able to recollect, Shyam.
06:53Do you remember?
06:54I think one is Rajasthan Royals vs Mumbai Indians if I remember right.
06:58Rajasthan vs Mumbai is the first game.
07:01And then Delhi Capital plays with Gujarat.
07:04Okay.
07:05So that's a double header again tomorrow.
07:07So you predict the winner.
07:09And if you are the lucky one, you walk away with this beautiful apparel kit.
07:13Okay.
07:14So Mumbai vs Rajasthan.
07:18Whom do you pick to win?
07:20I mean I am sure you will pick…
07:22Definitely.
07:23Even if Rajasthan has won the first match, I will still back Mumbai.
07:26Because Rajasthan is a hot opponent.
07:28And Delhi, I would definitely back Delhi against Gujarat.
07:32Yeah.
07:33I cannot disagree with you there.
07:35Yeah.
07:36These two teams are certainly one of the odds-on favorites.
07:39Especially Delhi.
07:40I mean they are looking really hot.
07:41They really impressed me in the last match.
07:43And that too without their OCS players.
07:46So when the OCS players come back, they can only get better.
07:49So that's all for today.
07:52Thank you very much for joining us.
07:57And for all our updates, please log on to gulfnews.com and all our social media channels.
08:02Till tomorrow.
08:03Good night.
08:11Good night.
08:12Good night.