Boys had an absolute blast against KKR: Chris Morris

MUMBAI: Rajasthan Royals (RR) allrounder Chris Morris said on Sunday that the 10-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) a couple of days back was tough to digest and the win against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Saturday was an "absolute blast".

Thanks to the South African allrounder's four wickets, where he accounted for all the hard hitters —Dinesh Karthik (25), Andre Russell (9), Pat Cummins (10) and ShivamMavi (5) — and also ran out Eoin Morgan for a duck, the Royals defeated KKR by six wickets at the Wankhede Stadium.

Morgan said at the post-match press conference that his team had to shut out the thoughts of losing by 10 wickets to RCB on the same Wankhede track on April 22.

"It is very easy to go down the dark route when you get beaten by 10 wickets. But you have got to take your hats off and say 'well played' to the players who got 100 and 70 not out (DevduttPaddikal and ViratKohli)," said Morris, who played his last T20I against Sri Lanka in March 2019.

"Next day, we were back to the drawing board. As a team, we had a good discussion about what our motivation is. And the boys pulled it up. It was the most fun I have had on the cricket field for a while. In the first seven overs, we were having an absolute blast out there," said Morris of the match against KKR on Saturday.

"We knew we were playing on the 10-wicket loss to RCB wicket. There was a reason why we chose to bat second. It (the track) does tend to speed up at night, which I think it did. Our execution was a lot better today in terms of hitting our lengths. Getting our execution of yorkers and bowling our slower balls, we were a lot better in that."

With Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes unavailable due to injuries, Morris has been playing the role of the leader of the Royals pace attack. Asked if it had put pressure on him, the South African said, "All of us are leaders in the team. Jaydev (Unadkat) has played quite a few IPLs. Chetan (Sakariya) is obviously playing his first, but he was a net bowler for us at RCB last year, so I have spent a little bit of time with him. ShivamDube has played a lot of cricket and so has MustafizurRahman. We are all leaders in our own way. As a bowler, you have got to be a leader in your own sense. We have got a lot of cool heads in the team to come and give us advice or calm us down." IANS

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