IPL 2022: KKR coach Brendon McCullum backs his batters after defeat against Gujarat Titans

Gujarat Titans (GT) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Saturday, Kolkata Knight Riders' (KKR) head coach Brendon McCullum backed his batters and said that they have been 'predominantly' good. Needing 29 runs in the last two overs, Gujarat's Alzarri Joseph delivered a heroic 20th over and dismissed Andre Russell for 25-ball 48, to register an eight-run win. "Our batters have been very good so far. We scored 210-odd in the last game. We have got 170-plus batting first (against Sunrisers Hyderabad), our batters have been predominantly very good," said McCullum in a post-match press conference.

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The KKR innings never got going as they lost wickets at regular intervals to finally end up with 144/8. India pacer Mohammed Shami provided Titans the perfect start by picking up openers Sam Billings, coming in place of Aaron Finch, and Sunil Narine in his first two overs.

"Overall I think we have been batting pretty well. From 34/4 and to be able to rebuild the innings and explode with Russell was pretty good; unfortunately, that was not quite enough," he added. Coming to the match, Russell's last-over heroics went in vain as Gujarat Titans held their nerve to get their sixth win of the campaign and move back up to the top of the IPL 2022 table. The total of 156 is now the lowest to be defended by a team so far in this edition of IPL. Hardik Pandya played a skipper's knock of 67 off 49 balls while David Miller played a handy innings of 27 for Gujarat Titans. For KKR, Tim Southee scalped three wickets while Shivam Mavi and Umesh Yadav bagged one each. Kolkata will now face Delhi Capitals while Gujarat Titans will