Mullanpur: Punjab Kings skipper Shreyas Iyer admitted that his team was indeed “befuddled” by the nature of the track during its eight-wicket defeat to Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL’s first qualifier but kept his chin up as they have only “lost a battle” but certainly “not the war”.
“We have lost the battle, but not the war,” Shreyas said at the post-match presentation ceremony after RCB dismissed the hosts for 101 in just 14.1 overs and then reached the meagre target in just 10 overs.
Punjab Kings will get another crack at making it to their second IPL final if they can win Qualifier 2, where they meet the winner of the Eliminator between Gujarat Titans and Mumbai Indians.
Iyer, speaking at the post-match presentation, was disappointed but emphasised how they need to look back and see what went wrong for them.
“Not a day to forget, but got to go back to the drawing board. We lost a lot of wickets. There’s a lot to go back and study on. I am not doubting my decisions, to be honest. Whatever we did in terms of planning, outside of the ground, whatever we did, I think it was on point. Just that we couldn’t execute it on the field,” he commented.
He did not think the bowlers should cop any of the blame as the batting let them down in the end. He focused on how the batting unit needs to assess the situation and play accordingly. But he remains confident in his side’s ability to turn things around in the second eliminator.
“Can’t even blame the bowlers, as it was a low total to defend. We’ve got to work on our batting, especially on this wicket. In all the games we have played here, there has been some variable bounce. We can’t give such reasons because we are professionals at the end of the day, and we have to bat according to the situation, and we have to live up to it,” he shared.
“We have lost the battle, but not the war,” he concluded.
PBKS will be watching the first eliminator between Gujarat Titans vs Mumbai Indians keenly, and they would be up against the winner of this game later on, who would then fight for the last spot in the final and take on the in-form RCB for the title.
