SRH vs KKR: Kolkata Knight Riders booked their place in the Playoffs

Kolkata Knight Riders made the play-offs of the Indian Premier League with a five-wicket win over Sunrisers Hyderabad, rising to the occasion and displaying in abundance the quality that sets apart two-time champions.

Lynn – Player of the Match: “It’s a great feeling. We’re building momentum nicely, so let’s see what happens. The wickets in BBL are a bit quicker, so I have to adapt here. I am finding my touch. Sunil is blasting it at the other end, so we’ve two blokes doing that now. The main thing is to build partnerships. It’s good fun (when Sunil is batting). He can take the momentum away from the other team. He keeps it nice and simple, and that seems to be working for him. Couple of wins on the board, and we’re not going to change the way we play.”

Karthik: “I think all eight teams strive for the play-off spots, so happy to reach there. Things are slowly setlling down. Just the way we are playing shows good character. I’d like to think that (we’re peaking at the right time).”

Robin Uthappa: “Well, we didn’t think about losing. We did fantastically well with the ball after they were 144-odd in 14 overs. To pull them back to 172 was sensational effort by our bowlers. We have been batting pretty well. I am pretty happy to have gotten a string of scores – I want more getting into the Playoffs. Happy with the way I batted today – playing the sheet anchor’s role to Lynny. We are hoping that Punjab does well tomorrow. Let’s see what happens.”

Williamson: “We were on target for more runs, wicket played really well. We should have scored around the 200-run mark but credit goes to KKR for dragging us back. Lot of credit goes to the the boys in the field. It doesn’t matter what happens now, we need to come out and play with freedom in the playoffs. Guys are looking forward to that but having said that we wanted to win this game. We have been fraction off the mark in the matches we have lost. I think we should have got more with the bat, we needed one more partnership but they bowled well in the death. If the batting comes off we will get more with the bat. We have adapted really well to the new surfaces. There are positives even in the losses too. There are not a lot of bad stuff just a few adjustments.”