After two exciting wins against Delhi Daredevils and Kolkata Knight Riders, the captain of Kochi Tuskers Kerala, Mahela Jayawardene expressed confidence about his team’s prospects though he admitted that winning at least 3 more matches is not so easy. However, now they have a bright chance for getting over.

According to Jayawardene, their victory over DD and KKR was the outcome of team effort. They could implement their game plans promptly and tough situations were handled most efficiently.

The KTK captain highlighted the stunning performances of the two young players from Kerala –  Raiphi Gomez and Prasanth Parameswaran. Jayawardene acknowledged that these two players could tilt the trend of the match against KKR. Regarding the scoring of his team, Jayawardene said that from the beginning they struggled to build up the runs and at the end Brad Hodge put forth a fierce batting and raised the score to a defendable level.

According to Jayawardene, though Knight Riders made a smart beginning of their innings his bowlers made severe attacks and made it too difficult for them to reach the target. 14 runs for two wickets in the four overs of Raiphi Gomez was the most splendid aspect of the match according to the KTK captain.  Prasanth Parameswaran followed the suit and built up much pressure over the KKR batsmen by scuttling their attempts to take runs.

Mahela Jayawardene admitted that his team’s new strategy of presenting four batsmen from abroad worked well. According to him the only drawback was that the great off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was deprived of a regular place. However, they could not compromise with the necessity to balance the team.

Muralitharan also felt it uneasy to watch the game throughout. However, he accepted it as an unavoidable situation in cricket.

After an easy win over Deccan Chargers at Hyderabad on May 3, Kolkata Knight Riders is sharing with Mumbai Indians the top most position of the score table of IPL season 4. In the score of 169 runs in 20 overs the major contribution was by the fierce batsman Yusuf Pathan who piled up 47 runs. The fielding by Captain Kumar Sangakkara and his boys of Deccan Chargers failed to cut short the aggressive batting by Yusuf Pathan and others.

Deccan Chargers suffered severe set back in the 6th over when both Iqbal Abdulla and Kumar Sangakkara were dismissed. At the end of the 6th over they were at 41 for two wickets.

The medium pace bowler of KKR, Rajat Bhatia gave another stunning blow to Chargers by claiming two wickets in the same over and thereby sending back Cameron White and Daniel Christian of DC. Shikhar Dhawan of Deccan Chargers had an impressive score of 54 runs.

According to the bowler of KKR, Brett Lee, their victory over Rajasthan Royals was a great achievement. Rajasthan Royals were all set to retaliate their defeat in the previous match against KKR and moreover the slow wicket of Eden Gardens, Kolkata made the game really difficult. According to Lee the positive attitude of the team members and their desciplined approach in all aspects enabled the team to win the match.

Brett Lee conceded that Balaji really deserved to be the Man of the Match for his marvellous bowling. He claimed the wicket of Shane Watson who was in a terrific form and that mainly paved the way for the defeat of RR. But for the early dismissal of Jacquous Kallis the batting by Knight Riders was highly impressive. Gautam Gambhir was also in a very aggressive form.

The defeat of Delhi Daredevils in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders on April 28 at Delhi has made it a very tough task for them to get through the knock out stage. Captain Virender Sehwag himself admitted that the 17-runs defeat pushed them to a very precarious situation. Presently they are at the bottom level of the score table.

Though it was a rather easy target of 149 runs, they failed to score much in the middle overs. The starting was good with a score of 40 runs in six overs. But, after the exit of David Warner and Sehwag the run rate dropped drastically since Irfan Pathan was out too early. According to Sehwag it is difficult to decide whether to play normally or opt for bowling when the target is 149 and an error in that decision might be the reason for the team’s failure. The wicket was favorable to batsmen.

Virender Sehwag is still optimistic since anything can happen in cricket. He is hopeful that the team may gain momentum out of the pressure to perform at this crucial stage.

Jacques Kallis of Kolkata Knight Riders described the match as a fabulous game and he too wondered why Sehwag and his boys could not perform. According to Kallis, in T20 match, full awareness of the conditions and perfect assessment of the winning total are the secrets of success. He said that at the prevailing conditions 148 was a competitive score.

Kallis has high appreciation of Manoj Tiwary whose maturity displayed while batting impressed him more.

Kallis was happy to see that his team was among the top four in the score table at the end of the knock out stage and said that their next goal is to make it to the semi-finals.