Kings XI Punjab skipper George Bailey today praised Mumbai Indians pace spearhead Lasith Malinga and said the two overs from the Sri Lankan towards the end played a crucial part in stopping their winning wheel.
"Aside from losing, I don't think things necessarily went wrong. I thought we got ourselves in a reasonable position to get an okay score. Lasith bowled two outstanding overs, that is why he is the best in the world.
"If he had bowled a bad over, the score could have been 180 and that maybe makes it a different game. But he bowled two outstanding overs and they had some good hitting later," Bailey told reporters at the post match press conference.
The Australian felt that it was a close game of cricket and the home side played better.
"I don't think we were complacent tonight. So I don't think that. I think we just lost. We created a lot of chances early. They bowled well again early, once again. It was just a good game of cricket. Honestly walked off not too disappointed because I still felt that we did lot of things right and it is one of those games that could could have gone either way. It was a close game of cricket. They just played better."
Openers Cheteshwar Pujara and Virendra Sehwag have failed to provide a good platform in most of the matches and asked if the team would tinker with the top slot, Bailey said, "We might do. They are doing pretty good. What they haven't done is gone and got a big score. Puji (Pujara) finished 40 not out in a good chase in one of the games. Viru's (Sehwag) has had couple of beautiful starts. He was a bit unlucky in that RCB game with a stiff decision. He is batting beautifully there. There is no doubt that if you are batting in top four you want those guys to get 50 plus big scores that wins you games but they are doing okay. They have had reasonable partnerships. I don't see big runs being too far away from Viru," he said.
