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Mohali: Kings XI Punjab captain Kumar Sangakkara has told his team they must put their opening-match loss to the Delhi Daredevils behind them ahead of a long Indian Premier Legaue campaign.
The Kings XI, invited to bat first, began poorly in Mohali and only reached a modest 142 for nine due to a well-constructed 56 from Ravi Bopara.
The Daredevils also lost early wickets but skipper Gautam Gambhir, captaining the Daredevils for the first time in the IPL, hit 72 and Mithun Manhas made an unbeaten 31 as they secured a five-wicket victory.
Sangakkara, who took over the captaincy from Yuvraj Singh earlier this year, admitted his team needed to improve.
"We did not bat particularly well although we had an okay start," he said.
"We lost too many wickets, but recovered well with Ravi and Irfan, but the loss of another couple of wickets after that stand dragged us back.
"The first game is always important, but we have got to put this behind us and there are a lot of things we could do better.
"We have got to brush up our batting, bowl better in the middle overs, get back to the basics and try to win."
Sangakkara praised Bopara's batting, adding: "Ravi is batting very well, he puts in a lot of hard work in the nets and that pays off for him in the middle.
"We just need everyone else to try and support the guys who are playing well and get the runs on the board."
Gambhir was pleased with his team's performance.
"We always knew that there would be something in the wicket and with the way Sreesanth started off we knew it was going to be tough," he said.
"But we had wickets in hand at the end and that proved decisive.
"I'd didn't think so much about captaining the side out there in the middle. It was my job as a batsman to score runs.
"I thought I was batting well and I believed I had to take the team through to the end.
"You are always on the backfoot when you lose early wickets and we knew one of us had to bat long and we needed partnerships.
