Brathwaite praises Nair, Billings

 Carlos Brathwaite credited the century stand between Karun Nair and Sam Billings for allowing him to go freely for his shots during Delhi Daredevils innings.

Brathwaite smashed 34 off 11 balls before returning with the figures of 3/47 to fetch the man of the match award.

“It helped that the pitch was a lot more true. We have horses for courses (policy). But let's not forget the foundation that was set by Karun (Nair) and Sam (Billings) that allowed me to come and play the way I wanted to play. So yeah, it did help but most important were the contributions from those two that laid the platform,” Brathwaite said.
When asked if his expensive second over put pressure on him, the West Indian said: “To be fair, there was no pressure from anyone but myself. I put that pressure on myself. Went off the field with a slight hamstring niggle but basically that was just to get my mind back in check.”

Kolkata Knight Riders’ Robin Uthappa said they were caught off guard by the Kotla track. None of their three spinners - Sunil Narine, Piyush Chawla and Brad Hogg could be effective this day.

“Kotla generally has a tag of slow track, but today it was flat and hard. The ball skidded off and nicely came on to bat. Our spinners were nullified today. But spinners are our strength and the idea was to back our strength,” said Uthappa, who was top scored with 72-run.

“With little more discipline, we could have restricted them to less than 160. We took our foot off pedal after getting the first three wickets and bowled some rank bad ball.”

Uthappa also words of praise for Daredevils’ captain Zaheer Khan “It’s tough to go on offensive against him. He still has that zip but surely that pace has dropped,” he said.