Dubai Nov 02 : Kings XI Punjab’s (KXIP) batsmen failed to fire in their decisive Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Chennai Super (CSK) Kings on Sunday, captain KL Rahul admitted. KXIP were pulled to 153/6 by Deepak Hooda after a middle order collapse and CSK chased the target down with nine wickets and more than an over to spare.
“It is as simple as that. We didn’t bat really well. Big pressure game and we expected 180-190 on the board, unfortunately we couldn’t soak in the pressure and get a big total. Disappointed but that’s how IPL goes,” said Rahul after the match.
The result means that KXIP are stranded at fifth despite the five back to back wins they managed in the second half of the league stage after struggling to get a win in the first half. They have been part of a number of close affairs, one of which included an erroneous short run call by the umpire in the second game of the season against Delhi Capitals (DC). The match went into the Super Over which DC ended up winning.
“If you look back at it, we had a lot of games in our pocket but we couldn’t get over the line. We only have ourselves to blame. At the start of the tournament, that short run has come back to bite us very hard. We all make mistakes and we have made a few this season. We need to accept it, learn from it and come back stronger,” said Rahul.
“We didn’t have results going our way in the first half. The team still felt we were playing good cricket. We were patchy at times with the bowling and the batting didn’t come together in the first half, we started doing well in the second half and really proud that we gave ourselves an opportunity to come into the top four. Unfortunate that today and yesterday’s game didn’t go our way but proud of the team. Hopefully we will come back stronger next year and forget this year.”
