The latest season of IPL is getting worse for Kings XI Punjab(KXIP) as they lost their fifth match in six matches.
KXIP captain David Miller won the toss for the first time in this tournament and decided to bowl first. The KXIP bowlers made a fine start as Sandeep Sharma dismissed in-form Rohit Sharma for a duck. KXIP bowlers conceded only 39 runs in the power play but failed to
take advantage of the situation as Mumbai recovered later to post a huge total of 189.
After the defeat, KXIP star Glenn Maxwell who finally got some runs said that his team’s campaign is not over yet but also said that the players will have to raise their standards by leaps and bounds to qualify for the playoffs.
“Honestly, I think anything can happen in this game,” the right-hander said on Monday (April 25). “We are going to need to do a lot of things right that we have been doing wrong so far. We need, to be honest with each other. We haven’t been good enough in all three facets of a complete game yet.
“But we’ve got to do everything right from now on. We just have to be clinical in what we do with the bat, ball and in the field. We’re just lacking a bit of polish at the moment and I’m sure that’s going to hopefully come after this short little break before we head to Rajkot and take on Gujarat (Lions).”
He also rued the chances that his team gave to Mumbai batsmen.
“We had Parthiv (Patel) a couple of times but there was no ball and the stumping was a little bit too slow,” he pointed out. “We are giving the opposition a lot of chances while they are not giving us any chances which are probably the reason why we are at the bottom of the table and not winning games.
“We bowled a no-ball to get the wicket and that player (Parthiv) ended up getting up to 80. That’s a pretty big difference. At one stage he was really struggling and had probably 28 or 30. Later he gets away (again). He gets a second life and then he’s able to play his natural game. We did the same thing for (Ambati) Rayudu. He gets dropped at deep midwicket and that opened up the game. Again, he’s able to play his free natural flowing game, hits a couple of sixes and puts us back under pressure.”
Talking about the bowling performance, he said that the bowlers lacked the killer punch in the end which let the Mumbai batsmen to post a big total.
“If you look at the scoreboard after 12 overs, I think they were at a 108-109 for 1 which is ridiculous. We had done so well throughout that Powerplay and all we needed was one or two more breakthroughs. But we let them slip. Our fielding has let us down massively in this game,” he concluded.