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KKR bowlers stifled us: Gilchrist

After having suffered an eight wicket drubbing, Kings XI Punjab skipper Adam Gilchrist Saturday praised the Kolkata Knight Riders bowlers, particularly the spinners, saying their combined effort stifled his batsmen.

“Their spinners bowled particularly well. Gambhir read the pitch very quickly. He got spinners from the fourth over,” gilchrist told mediapersons after the Kings went down to the Knight by eight wickets at the Eden Gardens.

“It was a combined effort by their bowlers. Their whole combined bowling effort stifled us,” said the former Australian wicketkeeper batsman.

Gilchrist said the run outs of top order batsmen Shaun Martsh, Dinesh Karthik and Abhishek Nayar hurt his team the most. “We gifted three run outs that hurt us... that doesn’t help in difficult batting conditions.”

Gilchrist, however, said his team would not get demoralised by the defeat as several matches are still left.

“It’s a game of cricket. There is a long way to go. Don’t think we will get too demoralised.

“We are now looking at the next match to do better. We had a long week’s rest. No use getting too down about it (the defeat).

Asked about the track, the Kings captain said it was a difficult batting wicket. I would not say it was a bad cricket wicket, but a challenging one.

“We were a little bit too low today,” he said.

He praised Karthik, whose 42 was the top score for the Kings XI Punjab

Gilchrist also lauded Gambhir’s captaincy but refused to draw a comparison between KKR teams of the past and the present side led by Gambhir.

“It’s a totally different team, isn’t it. There is no point comparing the teams. Other than Chennai (Super Kings) and Mumbai (Indians) there are not many teams who retained their players.

“They (Knight Riders) are obviously playing well. They have got a fine leader in Gambhir who is working well with (coach) Dav (Whatmore). They have some class players like most franchises,” he added.