Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel lashed out at his fielders after their costly lapses led to defeat, despite the team posting a mammoth 264/2 in 20 overs. Karun Nair dropped Shreyas Iyer twice in the same over off Kuldeep Yadav, a turning point in Delhi Capitals’ loss.Iyer, who survived those chances, went on to hammer an unbeaten 71 off 36 balls, guiding Punjab Kings to a six-wicket win with seven balls to spare as they chased down a daunting 265-run target on Saturday.
Incidentally, the previous highest successful run chase in T20s as well as IPL history also belongs to Punjab Kings, who had chased 262 against Kolkata Knight Riders in 2024.“Looking at the kind of wicket, if you don’t support your bowlers and keep giving away so many chances, then I feel we deserved to lose. That’s the main point,” a dejected Axar said at the post-match presentation.Earlier, Delhi Capitals rode on KL Rahul’s stroke-filled 152 – the third-highest individual IPL score – while Nitish Rana added 91 to power the hosts to 264/2.In reply, Prabhsimran Singh (76) and Priyansh Arya (73) provided a blazing start, stitching 126 runs in just 42 balls to lay the foundation for the chase.“It was a good pitch and a small ground, so sixes were always going to be hit. However, when opportunities arise and you don’t take even one, you drop chances, as we did today. On a wicket like this, if you don’t back your bowlers, it becomes difficult. At the same time, we also need to look at our bowling unit. The way we bowled in the powerplay, the fast bowlers, the fielding, and the opportunities we missed were the main reasons. Because on a wicket like this, 264 was a very good score. If you look at the positives, we scored 264, which is a record score in the Indian Premier League. This shows that if luck goes your way a little and you take your catches, you can win two or three matches in a row,” Axar said.“If you look at the matches we are losing, many were close games. That’s what I said at the toss as well, if we can grab the crucial moments, then two or three results could have gone our way and we could keep winning. But the key is that you have to seize those moments. It can’t keep happening that you come in every time and repeat the same mistakes. So I think we’ll go back, review it again, see what we can do, and where we can improve,” he added.Punjab Kings remain unbeaten this season and sit atop the points table with 13 points from seven matches.
