Punjab Kings (PBKS) skipper Shreyas Iyer has claimed that the standard of competition in the Indian Premier League is bigger than the English Premier League.
His comments came after PBKS’ six-wicket defeat at the hands of Delhi Capitals (DC) in Jaipur on Saturday (May 24).
Gujarat Titans, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and now Punjab Kings -- franchises that are already in the playoffs -- have lost to eliminated teams in their last three games.
This prompted Shreyas to say that any team has the ability to beat anyone in the cash-rich league.
"It's bigger than a Premier League, I feel. Every team is equally poised in this tournament. You need to stay positive and calm as much as possible. There is always a sunrise you see tomorrow. You need to stick to the present rather than dwelling on what happened today," Iyer said after the match.
PBKS failed to defend a big total of 206 runs at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium. Punjab's short ball tactic did not work against the Delhi batters, who managed to take their team over the line with six wickets in hand and three deliveries to spare.
"I felt that it was a fantastic score, to be honest, on this wicket. The wicket was helping the seamers. There was variable bounce on the wicket. The ball wasn't coming at the same pace. I felt that the score was over par," Shreyas stated.
"I think we weren't disciplined enough in terms of our execution. Once we read the wicket in the first innings, we planned on bowling hard lengths as much as possible and right at the stumps. We couldn't execute our plans as we tried bowling bouncers at certain stages, which wasn't required. It's a great learning experience for the boys," he added.
With this defeat, PBKS lost a big chance to reach the top of the table as they remained at 17 points after 13 matches. The top two spots in the team standings come with a cushion of playing one extra match at the playoffs stage, which gives the teams one more chance to qualify for the final in case of an off day in Qualifier 1.
Punjab Kings need to win their last league fixture against Mumbai Indians to stay in the top 2 spots. They will also hope that RCB or GT lose their last game, helping them reach the top 2 this season.
