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Poor start led to our downfall: Sangakkara
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PTI | Sat, 20 Mar, 2010,04:04 PM
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After slumping to their third consecutive defeat in the tournament, Kings XI Punjab skipper Kumar Sangakkara said poor start to their run chase cost his side the Indian Premier League match against Deccan Chargers.

 

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Chasing a competitive 171 for victory, Kings XI made a disastrous start to their innings, scoring just 27 runs for the loss of three wickets in the first six overs.

And according to Sangakkara, it made the difference between a victory and a defeat for Kings XI.

'The fielding and bowling was lot better. We executed our plans on the field well but it was the first six overs that cost us the match. But Pathan played a magnificient innings towards the end to keep us in,' Sangakkara said after the match.

'Hopefully we can turnaround the results in the next games. The guys are working very hard,' he said.

His Deccan Chargers counterpart Adam Gilchrist said although his side won the match yesterday, they were 15-20 runs short.

'We may have been 10-15 runs short. We let them make a comeback into the match after the start we had. We lost the momentum after mine and a few other wickets,' he said.

Man-of-the-match Andrew Symonds, who scored a 38-ball 53 apart from picking up a wicket and accounting for two crucial catches, agreed with his skipper.

'Probably we were 20 runs short of what we wanted. We lost wickets at crucial stages,' he said.

Meanwhile, Delhi Daredevils captain Dinesh Karthik blamed failure of their batting department for the five-wicket defeat at the hand of Chennai Super Kings.

'We have a couple of areas to work on. I think we lost quite a lot of wickets in the middle.

'I mean, once a batsman gets out he is followed by two or more batsmen. we have to stop this thing so that we an push the runrate higher in the end in the coming matches,' Karthik said yesterday after Delhi lost second consecutive match at home.

Karthik, however, said it was difficult to pinpoint any particular area of weakness and hoped that Dilshan will come good in the coming matches.

'It is tough to pinpoint where we went wrong. Dilshan was one of our best players last year but this year he is a little off colour. But he can't be away from scoring a big score,' Karthik said when asked about if Dilshan's form is affecting his team's prospect.

The Tamilnadu batsman said they felt short by 10-15 runs in the match.

'Once Hayden got out and we got a couple of wickets, we thought we can comeback. May be if we had 10 odd runs more we could have fought it out. They bowled well and batted well too,' he said.

Asked why Mishra was used late in the innings, Karthik said he didn't want to bring him in with Hayden going on in full swing at the crease.

'It was a tough call whether to introduce Mishra earlier. With Hayden going on in full swing, we decided to use pacers and also use Dilshan. We though we can get an edge may be but he hit three sixes off Dilshan and played well,' Karthik said.

Karthik said it was too early to panic as they still have many matches to go in the tournament.

'I don't believe in momentum. I think every match is a new game. Last year we made it to the semis, this time we have lost two matches at the start but that doesn't mean that we can't win matches at home.

'It is too early and we still have 10 matches to go. so I am looking forward to the next game,' he said.

Asked about the Mongoose bat that Hayden used yesterday, he said: 'Hayden is a hard-hitting batsman with Mongoose or without mongoose. He bats the same way.'

Meanwhile, Karthik's Chennai Super Kings counterpart Suresh Raina also had the same view.

'Hayden has got different idea about the game and he practised with the Mongoose bat in Chennai and here also yesterday.

'Yes, he played well. But I had also played (with Mongoose bat) for sometime but I didn't like it so changed it,' he said.

Asked why Joginder Sharma was included into the team, Raina said, 'Joginder was in the team because of his variations. I was playing well and I thought he would do well here and we would get another bowler.

Raina, leading in absence of regular skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, said they played as a team and hoped to continue the good show.

'We have been playing well and it was a team effort. We would like to repeat it in the next game also,' he said.

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