Kolkata Knight Riders and Rising Pune Supergiant camps heaped praise on RPS opener Rahul Tripathi, who single-handedly outsmarted KKR with his blistering 52-ball 93 in the Indian Premier League at the Eden Gardens here on Wednesday night.
KKR pacer Chris Woakes said a bright future awaited Tripathi. “It's always difficult to stop a player on his day. Tripathi played a fantastic knock. All credit to him. He put us under pressure. He attacked the new ball and when spinners came in he hit some good boundaries and cleared the ropes. He looks a very good player a guy for the future. Sometimes you have to say fair play, and very well played,” Woakes said.
RPS' Manoj Tiwary also hailed the Maharashtra batman's knock. “Rahul was outstanding. He has been in good touch from the start of the season. Last year he scored a hundred against Bengal. I knew that he would come up. In quarterfinals against us in Mushtaq Ali, he scored 92. He has been in good touch. Happy that he carried that momentum. It's pretty pleasing to see everyone contributing and we are picking in the right time,” said Tiwary, describing the win over KKR an important one that helped RPS improve its position.
Speaking about KKR's prospects, Woakes asserted that his team was optimistic about qualifying for the playoffs. “We lost our last two matches but our camp is still upbeat. We have some important matches coming up and we want to make sure that we win to qualify.”
The KKR speedster said a slow start against RPS hurt his team. “We did not quite get going in the Powerplay. To lose three wickets in Powerplay put us behind but we always tried to rebuild. We were probably 15-20 runs short. We were below-par and not an ideal score to defend on that wicket.”
Woakes agreed that the absence of an in-form Robin Uthappa troubled KKR. “Fingers crossed, Uthappa's not out for too long and is back for the next match,” said Woakes.
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