'Our death bowling needs to improve'

Disappointed at his team’s bowling at the death overs, Kolkata Knight Riders’ Manish Pandey said they needed to improve in this aspect of the game after Mumbai Indians pulled off a thrilling four-wicket win in an Indian Premier League game on Sunday.

“Even in the first game (against Gujarat Lions) we struggled with death bowling. I thought we can improve a little more. It is high time we start thinking and applying our mind about this in the meeting,” said Pandey in his post-match media conference at the Wankhede Stadium.

Riding on youngsters Nitish Rana and Hardik Pandya’s counter-attack, after being reduced to 119 for 5 at the beginning of the 17th over, Mumbai slammed 64 runs in the final 30 balls to pull off a sensational win, with one ball to spare.

“If bowlers hit yorkers consistently, it would be difficult for the batsmen. They missed a few, we missed a few. They played very well in the end and we have to work a bit more on death bowling. We shall overcome this,” Pandey said.

“It looked like we might win, but the two batsmen — Hardik (Pandya) and (Nitish) Rana — played really well. We could have bowled with a little more plan. We will bounce back,” he said confidently.

Pandey felt Pandya is growing slowly and steadily in confidence. “He is a very good player and coming up to be a very good all-rounder. We have seen how he has batted and finished games for India at number 7. Slowly he has matured as a player. He is gaining in confidence from all these matches.”