Venkatesh Iyer. (Source: BCCI)

The Kolkata Knight Riders defeated Delhi capitals in a nail-biting encounter in Sharjah by 3 wickets.

WHO SAID WHAT?
Venkatesh Iyer, Man of the Match: I am doing what has been asked of me. I am very happy that we ended on the winning side. There is no difference. I came out and played the way I want to play. I am grateful to the management. It is a wonderful place to come and play. I think in the past couple of games, I have been trying to restrict myself a bit as I wanted to stay till the end. But then I thought it is not me. I was losing out on the present trying to be a bit conservative. Gill is an extremely wonderful strokeplayer and we complement each other. Heard the news (about being asked to stay back in the Indian bio-bubble for the T20 World Cup) this morning, but my entire focus was on tonight’s game.

Eoin Morgan, KKR skipper: We will dissect what happened in the last four overs. The openers gave us a great platform. But we have won and we are in the finals. We are delighted to get over the line. We are in the entertainment business and need to play some entertaining cricket. Six off 2 and you would say the odds are for the bowling side. But Tripathi has done it for us so many times. The guys coming in feel free to express themselves. The backroom staff have created an excellent atmosphere for that to happen. With the squad we have, we had huge expectations. Our coach BMac saw Iyer and had tracked his progress. Iyer seems to be batting on a different wicket. Anything can happen in a final!

Rahul Tripathi: It feels great. The win for the team was very important. We had one or two tough overs and I never thought it would go so deep. Glad we won the game. Rabada bowled the 18th over really well, but I knew that I had to just connect one. The plan was to take a two if there was a possibility. If it was two, we were running, otherwise it was going to be me. It was difficult to straightaway get singles and boundaries for the new batsmen. It was keeping low and it was difficult to hit. I believed in myself and knew it was just one hit away. It has been a great journey for us after the first phase. We believed in ourselves and the approach given by Eoin and the coach helped us with the positive approach.

Rishabh Pant- I don’t have words to express at the moment, can’t tell anything. We just kept believing, tried to stay in the game as long as possible. The bowlers nearly pulled it back, but it’s unfortunate that it didn’t go our way. They bowled very well in the middle-overs, we got stuck and couldn’t rotate strike. Delhi Capitals are known to be positive and hopefully we’ll come back better next season. We played really good cricket, yes, there will be ups and downs, but we’ll stay positive, be there for each other, care for each other and hopefully we’ll come back better next season.

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