Jason Roy urges KKR to ‘draw line in the sand’ after disappointing first half in IPL | Cricket News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Kolkata Knight Riders are in dire straits with four consecutive defeats in the IPL 2023 and they need a desperate win to give their faltering campaign a much-needed impetus.
Rinku Singh emerged as a brilliant finisher with his aggressive batting and Venkatesh Iyer’s feat of becoming only the second KKR batter to score IPL century are the some few bright spots. Brendon McCullum was the first to hit a century when he smashed 158 in the first-ever IPL match back in 2008.
KKR aggressive batter Jason Roy admitted it has been a tough first half for the two-time Indian Premier League winners, urging them to “draw a line in the sand” and keep pushing hard.
KKR will face Royal Challengers Bangalore in Bengaluru on Wednesday, whom they had crushed by 81 runs in their previous meet earlier this season.

“The talk in the camp is to just keep pushing hard, we got to enjoy ourselves. It is very easy in cricket, especially in short formats to lose and (resultantly) lose a lot of confidence,” Roy told the media during his pre-match press conference here.
“We are trying to keep the confidence high, smile in the change room, making sure our methods do not change too much. As individuals we need to look in the mirror, get better each session and think how we can individually impact the game in a better way. We have had some good individual performances along the losses, which is a bit of positive, but a loss is a loss,” he said.
“We got to draw a line in the sand now that the half of the tournament is done for us and we just got to push forward,” Roy added.
Roy, who smacked a 26-ball 61 with five sixes and as many fours against Chennai Super Kings batting at No 5, said that he wanted to open but could not, owing to the rules since he had left the field during the first half.
“I left the field for 12 minutes at the end of our innings so I was not able to bat for further 12 minutes when our innings started, and it just so happened that we lost those wickets when we did.
“It is just the rules of the game, unfortunately. There was no reason behind it, I really wanted to open and I was pushing my case to open on that wicket, and had to try and do the job in the middle-order,” he said.
Roy refused to read much into KKR’s struggles in the powerplay, having consistently lost wickets at the start.
“The guys are training, working hardest to be the best version of them. There is no reason behind it; it is just the way cricket goes sometimes,” he said.
The right-handed English batter said he is not looking too far ahead at the World Cup later this year and is focussed on the IPL for now.
“With the 50-over World Cup at the end of the year, I have played quite a bit of cricket in the subcontinent. I am just excited to keep pushing for the rest of the tournament (IPL) because we have had a tough start; there is no hiding (from) that. It is (going to be) a huge second half for us,” he said.
(With PTI Inputs)