Kings XI Punjab fast bowler, Chris Jordan said that Mohammed Shami bowled brilliantly to defend five or six runs in his super over and from then the momentum swung their way and they knew they could win the game in the second super over.
Speaking during the post-match press conference, Jordan said that it would have been easy for them to drop their heads down after they got just five runs in their first super over, but the team had the belief that they could pull the game in their favour.
Mohammed Shami gave just 5 runs in the first super over, which got tied and the game went into the second super over. Jordan had the responsibility to bowl the second one. Asked about if he had any score in his mind, Jordan denied it saying that whatever Mumbai Indians were going to get, they had to chase it. He said that his focus was to execute his plans and luckily he put together a decent over for their batters to chase that down.
Facing Kieron Pollard and Hardik Pandya, Jordan gave away two wides and one four and bowled yorkers one after the other to restrict MI to just 11 runs in that 2nd super over, which also included a run-out and a fabulous fielding effort by Mayank Agarwal at the boundary to save 4 runs for his side. Mayank Agarwal and Chris Gayle then made the required 12 runs in just four balls to win the game for their side.
KXIP scored just 5 runs in their first super over owing to some excellent bowling by Jasprit Bumrah. KL Rahul and Nicholas Pooran came into bat in that over. Asked why Gayle wasn’t sent in the first one, Jordan said that both Pooran and Rahul have been in great form and with Mayank, Gayle, Glenn Maxwell to follow, any two or three of those could have been sent.
Punjab were in a great situation at one point when Mumbai Indians were at 122-6 after 17 overs of their innings. But due to Pollard’s late onslaught of 34* (12) and Nathan Coulter-Nile’s 24* (12), MI scored 54 runs in the last three overs to get to a score of 170-plus.
Asked about KXIP’s death bowling woes, Jordan said that Pollard played some unbelievable shots and even if Arshdeep Singh missed his yorkers by inches, Pollard was hitting them into the stands. He added that they can continue to improve in this area, but the way they bowled those two super overs, it showed a lot of character from the team.
Kings XI Punjab now have won two games in a row and have equalled with all the other three teams in the bottom half of the points table. Asked if this win could prove to be a turning point in KXIP’s campaign, Jordan hoped, saying that it was good to finish on the right side of close games as they could have easily won the two or three close games that they lost. He added that the team spirit they have shown, this win will go a long way in maintaining that.
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