IPL 2017, GL vs KXIP: Our bowlers, especially spinners, need to step up, says Suresh Raina

Suresh Raina asked his bowlers to step up and make themselves count if Gujarat Lions are to get out of the bottom of the IPL points table. Lions suffered yet another defeat – fifth of the season – to go down by 26 runs to Kings XI Punjab at Rajkot. Batting first, KXIP scored 188/7 despite Gujarat containing the KXIP early on and then in the middle overs. Punjab found large portion of runs from Hashim Amla who picked up the Orange Cap with second consecutive fifth and forge partnerships with Shaun Marsh and Glenn Maxwell. Amla top scored with 65 runs from 40 balls to help KXIP on despite losing Manan Vohra early. “You can’t chase 190 every time. Bowlers have to do something. We haven’t won any 4 p.m. games. It’s a learning curve for us. Spinners have to step up,” Raina said after the match. “Nathu (Singh) got cramps, so I had to bowl (Dwayne) Smith in the second last over. The bowlers are lacking confidence. They are not executing on match day. They do well in the nets, but not on match day, he added. And that second last over could have been the difference in the end between the two sides. He went for 18 runs including two sixes and a four by Axar Patel. Raina praised the KXIP bowlers Sandeep and Mohit Sharma for making the most of the pitch which got slower with time. If things couldn’t have been tough for GL, they got worse with the news of Dwayne Bravo being ruled out of the IPL. “We thought we could still chase it down, but while we were batting, the wicket got slower and Sandeep (Sharma) and Mohit (Sharma) bowled good slower balls and made it hard for us to hit,” the skipper said. “At this stage, I can’t say anything. We have to go there. Couple of injury issues, but we have to win more games, we can’t just talk in training. We’ll go to Bengaluru, regroup and hopefully we can win,” he added. Amla was an absentee during the presentation and Maxwell said he was pretty sore during the middle of the innings. “The guys have celebrated Hashim and Manan’s outstanding innings the other day. I’m uncertain of Hashim’s fitness issues, he was pretty sore when I was out there batting with him,” said the KXIP skipper. He lauded Amla and Marsh for making the difference at the top of the order for his side. “Amla and Marsh are outstanding. Classical batsmen, and for them to get as deep as they did, it allowed the hitters to play their game,” he added.