Tag: Gilchrist

The skipper of Kings XI Punjab, Adam Gilchrist, has praised his young side for putting up a fine show against a relatively stronger Pune warriors India on Sunday.

Kings XI Punjab doesn’t have too many star players in its line up unlike PWI which has got the players like Ross Taylor, Marlon Samuels and Angelo Mathews. Also, Punjab’s past record in the opening matches was quite dreadful. So, not many people were considering them the favourite to win this encounter.

But, Punjab not only won, they won by a huge margin. The young players played a major role in Punjab’s victory on Sunday.

Two youngsters who caught the attention of everyone in the stadium were Gurkeerat Singh and Manan Vohra.

The catch which Gurkeerat took to dismiss Ross Taylor might eventually become the catch of the tournament. It was a tremendous catch and Taylor couldn’t believe that the fielder had caught that. He stood there for a while in disbelief.

Taylor had whipped a length delivery towards long leg. Gurkeerat was at square leg. He ran about 10 yards to his right and then with a full stretched drive, he managed to grab the ball with both hands.

When Punjab was chasing a target of 100, another youngster performed impressively for Punjab. It was Manan Vohra who came to bat at no. 3 after the fall of his skipper’s wicket.

He played some crisp strokes during his inning of 43 and guided his team to victory.

Talking to the reporters in the post match press conference, Gilchrist said, “It was important to score runs quickly as we all know how important the net run rate becomes in the later stages of the tournament. So, I told the guys to play positively.”

“Manan is a class act. He is very young, but, some of the shots that he played in the match show that he has got great potential.”

“Gurkeerat’s catch was definitely one of the best that I have seen. That catch gave us a vital breakthrough as Ross could have done a lot of damage if he had stayed in.”