Silly Mistakes And Not Handling Pressure Well Cost Us Game vs RR: Brendon McCullum

Mumbai: KKR head coach Brendon McCullum said a couple of silly mistakes and not handling pressure as well as they should have, cost them the game against RR.

“With four overs to go, we were in the driver’s seat, but then some silly mistakes and not being able to handle the pressure cost us the game. From our point of view, we have got three losses in a match. We have to find a way to keep our morale high, which is very important,” McCullum said in a press conference later. Also Read: I Knew In My Mind I Had To Take Wickets To Change Game: Chahal On Hat-Trick

“There can be a tendency to run away from things when you don’t cross the line in some major sports. We just have to keep pushing ourselves, make sure we stick together and stay calm. We’ve been there before and it’s going to test us again this time,” he added.

Rajasthan spinner Yuzvendra Chahal took a hat-trick and completely crushed Kolkata’s hopes of chasing a mammoth target of 218.

“We were trying to hold Pat Cummins for the fast bowlers. Chahal has the numbers on several occasions. Mavi’s role was to go through that. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to execute what we were meant to do there and we made a mistake. You can’t allow good players like Chahal to enter the game when there’s pressure on. We played a good game but made some silly mistakes. But it happens sometimes. Jos Buttler scored a century for his side, Yuji Chahal took five wickets including a hat-trick and we lost by seven runs, so we played a good game but finished second,” said the KKR coach.

“We talked at length about how big a threat he was in the game, and we didn’t want to give him wickets at crucial moments of the game. If we had our time again, we’d have looked to play that over differently and we saw the impact he can have against the seamers in the last couple of overs with the ball sliding on,” he added.

Jos Buttler’s 103-run knock, his second of the season, and Chahal’s five-wicket haul, which also included a hat-trick, powered Rajasthan Royals to a thrilling seven-run win against Kolkata Knight Riders here at the Brabourne Stadium.

Follow us on Twitter, and Instagram, and like us on Facebook for the latest updates and interesting stories.