Auckland, Oct 28 (IANS): Kolkata Knight Riders head coach Brendon McCullum admitted that his coaching style during the IPL 2021 was 'a little wild'. At the same time, he was pleased that his team made a roaring comeback in the second half of the tournament in the UAE to reach the final.

"My style of leadership or coaching was perhaps a little wild … it takes a little while to really dig down and thankfully we were able to do it in the second half of the tournament and we got a bit more intent into batting and then we were able to play a bit more of an aggressive form of cricket. Thankfully it translated to results and we got on a bit of a roll," McCullum said to SENZ Drive on Thursday.

At the end of the first half of the IPL 2021, Kolkata had just two wins out of seven matches and were placed seventh. But in the second half of the tournament in the UAE, they made a sensational turnaround, winning five out of their remaining league matches, resulting in reaching the playoffs. From there, they won the eliminator followed by the second qualifier and then reached the final in Dubai, where they lost to eventual champions Chennai Super Kings by 27 runs.

"We rocked in to the second half of the tournament, we were kind of dead and buried (after starting two wins and five losses). We were under a fair amount of pressure with two wins from seven games and seventh on the table out of eight. The expectations on us were pretty low," remarked McCullum, who won the IPL 2012 title with Kolkata as a player.