Kolkata: Rising Pune Supergiant captain Steve Smith on Wednesday heaped high praises on young talent Rahul Tripathy for helping them win a crucial Indian Premier League (IPL) match over Kolkata Knight Riders by 4 wickets at the Eden Gardens Tripathi scored a blazing 93 runs off 52 balls. The Supergiant with the win yesterday took a giant step towards qualifying for the play offs.
Pune by virtue of its win against KKR has moved to the third spot in the points table. Steve Smith’s side have now collected 14 points from 11 games.
Rising Pune Supergiant has now won 6 matches out of their last 7. Terming the great run as good, Smith said, “It has been a good little run for us, tonight was a really good team performance and we did really well to restrict them.”
Smith also gave credit to Tripathi for shouldering responsibity with the bat.
“Tripathi has been a revelation, well done to the young feller. We thought the wicket would slow down as the game went on, we went hard at the ball and it was important for us to score big in the powerplay.”
Knight Riders captain Gautam Gambhir rued missed opportunities for tonight’s loss.
According to Gambhir, “It is a long tournament and these things happen, it was an opportunity for others to step up. We have three more games to go and I hope we can turn things around, taking the game to the last over was a decent effort. We played too many dot balls tonight, we have to win going forward and pull up our socks.”