Although captain Shreyas Iyer admitted that “it will take a lot of effort to envision that,” the Punjab Kings appear eager to win their maiden IPL championship this season.
In a high-scoring match in Mullanpur on Saturday, Shreyas led from the front with an undefeated 69 off 33 balls to lead PBKS to a comfortable six-wicket victory over Sunrisers Hyderabad, making small work of a 220-run target after openers Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh set it up with a thrilling stand of 99 from 38 balls.
“They’re delivering on the field. I keep reiterating every now and then, you have to be in the present. Ricky (Ponting) also takes a lot of importance in this aspect. Even last year, we came so close to winning the trophy. This year, we want to lift it. It will take a lot of effort to envision that,” PTI quoted Shreyas as saying at the presentation ceremony.
Player of the Match Shreyas praised his openers, Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya, for building a solid platform with their potent Powerplay batting.
“Firstly, we’ve got a phenomenal start. When you’re chasing 220, you need that start. Pleasing to the eye, proper cricketing shots. Steadied the rhythm at the start. Not easy, but maintaining that momentum – I needed to give myself time. Once I gauged the pace of the pitch…”
After winning the toss and asking SRH to bat, Abhishek Sharma and Travis Head destroyed the PBKS bowlers, amassing 120 runs in just 8.1 overs. But in the same over, Shashank Singh removed both Head and Abhishek, bringing them back into the match.
Asked what was the thinking after SRH’s start, Shreyas said, “All of us came together, and Shashank approached me, give me an over. Ricky came and asked me, what’s your thought? I said I’ll go with Shashank – I need someone to take the pace off. He lived up to his expectations, he lived up to what he said, kudos to him… At the end of the day, we all know we’ve got the skills. We need a strong mindset when we go for such chases.”
Priyansh and Prabhsimran have complete freedom to express themselves at the top, according to Shreyas.
“Openers have been flowing throughout, they don’t need to curb their instincts. Others, who set their platforms from ball one, it’s easy for us to rotate strike and go according to run rate. Overall, we’ve been magnificent with our work ethic. All players worked their… bodies off.”
Ishan Kishan, the captain of SRH, expressed disappointment as he conceded that his team’s execution was lacking and that they could have scored more after Abhishek and Head’s strong start.
“We could have ended with a total of 250, the way we started… At the same time, they batted well in the beginning. At the same time, we were not so good with the execution – in T20 cricket, the most important thing is the execution of your good balls,” Kishan said.
“190 is a par score here, we could have had 240 here. But 220 was a great total. We had six or seven bowlers. It showed in their batting that it was easier scoring runs for them. I think in today’s age, you don’t have to plan much – you just do ahead of the game. You know which batter hits where. When you don’t execute balls, you have nothing – you just end up giving 10-20 runs.”
