 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Kings XI Punjab may have shown their mettle, winning two games so far in the Oppo Champions League T20, but the team coach Sanjay Bangar said that there is still a scope for improvement.
"I just feel there is a scope for lot of improvement. I believe that our players need to challenge their own levels. It's good to have two wins, but I feel there is still scope for improvement," Bangar said.
When asked if there were any particular areas in which the team would look to improve further, the former Indian cricketer said, "in general, we would still like to play better than what we did in previous outing". KXIP have so far won both their opening games against Hobart Hurricanes and Barbados Tridents, chasing down the totals of 144 and 174, respectively, which were set in the two games by their opponents.
When asked to comment that the team had build a reputation for itself being good at chasing the totals, Bangar said, "it's just that they are talented individuals and they have the skills to do it. May be that is the reason for that."
About the matches coming up ahead, he said, "we respect our opponents but our focus is, we look inwards. We try to do things to best of our abilities, how best we can try and reach our benchmarks".
Asked ever since he has joined the squad there is a talk that he has been going about doing his job silently but as a tough task master, Bangar said, "I don't know what the players have to say about me. I just try to do the best I can. I try and put a lot of effort in preparations. I don't try to do anything different, cricket is a simple game and we need to keep it simple."
With some team players wanting to defeat the Kolkata Knight Riders in the CLT20 tournament to avenge their IPL final defeat, Bangar, "I think that is too far fetched an idea. Obviously, at times the exuberance of youth takes over. It is always nice to have that sort of an exuberance, but there is still lot of bridges to be crossed. We can take it from there."
Kings XI depends on Australian players with the likes of skipper George Bailey, Glenn Maxwell with some explosive batsmen such as Virender Sehwag, David Miller, besides Indian players Wriddhiman Saha, Manan Vohra and Rishi Dhawan, making the batting line-up quite strong.
Kings XI have some good bowlers in Sri Lanka's Thisara Perera, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Parvinder Awana and spinner Akshar Patel.