The Hindu : Sport : PowerPlay trouble for Bangalore

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PowerPlay trouble for Bangalore

Cape Town: Kevin Pietersen, the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore, feels that his side’s inability to tackle the PowerPlays well both during batting as well as bowling has been one of the main reasons for the team’s mediocre show in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL).

“Definitely, the target was far too big. Adam Gilchrist did play well, but we haven’t helped ourselves in the first six overs of each game,” he said after his team lost by 24 runs to Deccan Chargers at the Sahara Park Newlands.

“And, certainly in our batting we haven’t done as well in the first six overs as we should have. We are losing far too many wickets in the six overs. Even our bowling in the last two games in the first six overs hasn’t been good. We need to put it behind us very quickly,” he was quoted as saying by the official website of IPL.

Room for improvement

Asked if he was happy with the fielding, Pietersen said: “There is always room for improvement in batting, bowling and fielding. I think we can improve on it.”

On the reason for the batting failure, the Englishman replied: “Don’t know, mate”.

Pietersen agreed that his team was struggling to overcome the problem of losing early wickets since last year.

“I think early wickets and also the fact that we have let the other side get off to a start. Like we have done with Matthew Hayden and Parthiv Patel when we didn’t bowl well,” he said.

He said Rahul Dravid was playing very well but the targets were too big in their last two matches. “Rahul’s in a role that he is playing fantastically well.

“So, we have been unfortunate in that we have had to chase 180 and 170 in the last two games. We shouldn’t probably have had to chase that many.

“But then again, having said that we haven’t really helped ourselves in the first six-ten overs even in the batting department,” he said. — PTI

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