Kings XI Punjab captain Glenn Maxwell termed his team’s six-wicket loss to Gujarat Lions on Sunday “pretty devastating” after their chances of reaching the play-off hopes were severely dented.
Maxwell blamed the loss, despite putting 189 on the board, on the team’s shoddy fielding, saying the dropped catches hurt the team badly.
“189 was enough, the bowlers and fielders let us down. We dropped three crucial catches. We haven’t won a heap of games in a row. We’ve had to scrap. Unfortunately, we’ll lose Hashim and David Miller now, and we’ll have to look deep in our reserves and regroup,” Maxwell said.
Meanwhile, winning captain Suresh Raina said that the win was a big morale booster for the team, even though Gujarat Lions are already out of the play-off race.
“We had too many injuries (this year). (But) still a good season for the youngsters,” he said.
He hailed openers Dwayne Smith and Ishan Kishan for setting the platform for the comfortable win.
“Smithy (Smith) and Ishan gave us the platform and later on me and DK (Dinesh Karthi) had a good partnership. I think it was about six-over partnerships.
“Sandy (Sandeep Sharma) and Mohit (Sharma) bowled brilliantly in between, but me and DK rotated the strike really well. When you’re chasing 190, you need a good start, and that’s what we’ve had in the last couple of matches,” he said.
Player-of-the-match, Smith, who struck a whirlwind 74 up the order, said overall he was disappointed with his performances this season.
“(I’m) still disappointed about my performances over the past games. I think my natural game is like that, it was just about staying out there as long as possible, and if I do that we’ll stay in front of the run rate,” he said.
“I knew once I stay out there, runs will come for sure. We’re already out of the tournament, so we can’t worry about that, we just need to keep going on and look to damage some other teams as well,” Smith signed off.