He [Shubman] is a wonderful player of spin: Sai Kishore praises GT skipper

"I think especially when it comes to spin, he [Shubman] is a wonderful player of spin. So it helps when he is captaining. He gives me that few pointers where you can do this, you can do that. When you're a bowler who relies on the wicket, you can turn the ball on both sides, all those things won't matter. But when you're a finger spinner, you need all these small inputs on what to do, what not to do. So in that way, it's been very very beneficial, especially in this game," Sai Kishore said in the post-match press conference.

Kishore believed that Shubman Gill, Sai Sudharsan, and Joss Butler adapted to the challenging wicket and made batting look easy.

He also noted that the wicket appeared good for batting, but became more challenging when they bowled in the second innings.

"No matter how much you want to hit the ball very hard, when the wicket is slightly different, when the wicket challenges you, I think that is where batsmanship comes into play and to be fair, Shubman and Sai, even Joss, I think all three of them are batting in a way where they are making it look very easy. When we were looking at the way they were batting, I felt the wicket was actually very good, but only when we bowled that it felt that it was gripping and turning," he added.

KKR continued to struggle in their title defence as their batters once again failed to meet expectations against the reliable GT, who defeated the defending champions by 39 runs at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Monday.

After being asked to bat first, GT scored 198/3 with excellent half-centuries from captain Shubman Gill (90) and Sai Sudharsan (52), as well as some brisk finishing from Jos Buttler (41*).

KKR managed little resistance in reply, finishing with 159/8 despite excellent spells from Prasidh Krishna (2/25) and Rashid Khan (2/25), with the exception of their captain, Ajinkya Rahane (50). With three victories and five defeats, KKR has now dropped to seventh place, while GT continues to lead with 12 points from six wins and two losses.