Once again, in yet another Indian Premier League season, the Kings XI Punjab have comfortably found themselves at the bottom of the points table. The 2020 edition of the IPL is three weeks down already and Punjab’s position at this point is rather alarming. In their latest disappointment, KXIP were crushed by MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings, on Sunday, by 10 wickets (and 14 balls remaining).
So far, the KXIP team have only won 1 game out of its 5 outings and lost 4 games, of which 1 was a Super Over against Delhi Capitals. Punjab’s top-order batsman Mandeep Singh has admitted that the team needs to pull its socks up and perform their best in the remaining 9 games, in which they to win 7 games to make it to the playoffs safely.
“Definitely, it is going to be tough from here, we need to win at least seven from our remaining nine matches, it will be challenging but I think our main issue is bowling, we have been struggling with the death bowling, we kind of went with Jordon in this game but Watson and Faf finished the game early, hopefully, we can address our bowling and we can put on a good show,” Mandeep said during the virtual post-match press conference.
“I feel we need to keep the fighting spirit going and we need to look at winning one game at a time,” he added.
The 28-year-old from Jalandhar has only got one game so far, the match against CSK in which KXIP got a 10 wicket thrashing, and only managed to score a 16-ball 27 on Sunday, October 4. Meanwhile, KXIP skipper KL Rahul top-scored with a 52-ball 63. Mandeep especially stressed on Punjab’s poor bowling form and how it is crucial for the bowlers to step up in the upcoming games.
“Honestly, I was trying to spend a bit of time in the middle, I was playing a match after eight-nine months, Rahul also told me to get my eye in and have few balls, I was looking to be positive, if the ball is in my arc, definitely I will hit it. Honestly, bit disappointing, I was striking the ball well, I would have loved to continue my innings, maybe that was the difference, maybe 10-12 runs, if me, Nicholas or Rahul would have stayed till the 20th over, the score could have been 190-200,” Mandeep added.
“I think our strength has been that we have been taking wickets upfront, but that did not happen in the match against CSK, both Watson and Faf took the game away from us, our strength in the last few games has been that we have been taking wickets in the first six overs but that did not happen against CSK.”
Openers Shane Watson (83* off 53) and Faf du Plessis (87* off 53) had put up an unbeaten 181-run stand for Chennai Super Kings in their big win over Kings XI Punjab, on Sunday, October 4.