Punjab Kings (PBKS) skipper Shreyas Iyer opened up on his chat with Yuzvendra Chahal as the leg-spinner produced another impressive performance for the franchise on Friday April 18).

Chahal, who was signed by PBKS for INR 18 crore at the mega auction last November, struggled for form early on in the IPL 2025 as he picked up just two wickets in the first three matches.

However, the veteran spinner bounced back with four wickets in the thrilling win over KKR and continued his fine run against RCB, returning with figures of 2 for 11 in 3 overs during the rain-curtailed affair. Chahal now has 8 scalps from 7 games in the tournament.

Speaking at the post-match presentation, Shreyas said that he told Chahal he was a match-winner for the side and urged him not to be safe and go for wickets.

“I hope he continues the same form. Personally I had a chat with Chahal. I told him you are a match winner and you need to get us wickets as much as possible. You don't need to be safe in your approach and he has got the capability of bouncing back. That's what we appreciate of him as a leggie. Probably he is the best bowler in the IPL so far,” Shreyas stated.

The captain was pleased to experience the roller-coaster ride that PBKS are on at the moment as they have seen the highs and lows over the course of the last three games.

“As they say variety is the spice of life. We are able to experience all kinds of games over here. It is a great challenge,” he added.

Commenting on his captaincy, Shreyas said that he was making the calls based on his instincts. His aim was to ensure that the RCB batters didn't get any time to settle at the crease.

“There was no thinking to be honest. I was making instinctive moves and obviously we were getting wickets. I didn't want the new batsman to come in and settle straightaway.

“Marco was able to extract little bit of bounce on this wicket. He was bowling lethal. He basically steadied the ship. And the rest of the bowlers they helped him. To be honest, we didn't know how the wicket was going to play and I personally feel the bowlers they adapted according to it. When I had a chat with Arshdeep, he said, the hard length balls were very difficult to hit on this wicket because I didn't see a single six off a fast bowler hit down the ground. That was the chatter going around and they were fantastic in executing it,” he remarked.

Shreyas Iyer was effusive in praise of Nehal Wadhera, who played a brilliant knock of 33* in 19 balls to take PBKS over the line in 12.1 overs during the chase of 96.

“You need one batsman to take the charge. Nehal was brilliant in his approach today. The attitude was top notch,” he said.