Mohali: Batting may have been their main strength this season, but Kings XI Punjab skipper George Bailey heaped praise on his young crop of bowlers who have helped the team to emerge on top of the Indian Premier League (IPL) points table.

With rookie leg-spinner Karanveer Singh returning impressive figures of 4-0-16-2 as Kings XI comfortably beat Rajasthan Royals here on Friday, Bailey gave the young talent a thumbs up.

“Yeah, absolutely. Karanveer bowled beautifully,” Bailey told reporters after the match.

When asked if the team sees a greater role for Karanveer in the play-offs, the KXIP’s Australian import said, “that’s why he is playing. We are playing him because we think he has a role to play.”

He also had words of praise for his other young domestic players.

“We have been very lucky. Sandeep [Sharma] has done very well, Akshar [Patel] at the start of the tournament, Manan [Vohra] has come in and performed outstandingly well. Karanveer has done it today [Friday]. Really proud of that and really proud we can provide them an environment where these guys come and play and perform,” he said.

Bailey, 31, also defended South African Beuran Hendricks, who remained wicketless against Rajasthan and gave away 57 runs.

“He was a little unlucky, but his skills are definitely outstanding,” Bailey said.

When asked why star performer Glenn Maxwell was left out, Bailey said “he wanted to play, everyone in the squad wants to play, no doubt about that. We are resting him, he has got some big games coming up, nice to freshen him up and he will be ready and raring to go.”

Asked if the team, which has ten wins from 13 outings and faces bottom-ranked Delhi Daredevils in their final league encounter on Sunday, had figured out who will be their playing XI for the play-offs, Bailey said: “No, not at all. We will go out there and see the conditions who we are playing and what sort of wicket it will be.”

When asked if he will test the bench strength in Sunday’s game, Bailey added: “I am not sure, we will talk to [coach] Sanjay [Bangar] and [bowling coach] Joe [Dawes] and [fielding coach R.] Sridhar and assess the things... we will see what the wicket is like and all those things.”

Meanwhile, Karanveer, who got the wickets of Sanju Samson and Stuart Binny, said he was just trying to stick to the basics while bowling.

“I wanted to bowl on my strength, which is to turn the ball. I just kept it simple,” he said.