Karun Nair and Axar Patel (BCCI/IPL Photo) NEW DELHI: Delhi Capitals captain Axar Patel lashed out at his fielders after their costly run-outs led to defeat despite the team posting a mammoth 264/2 in 20 matches. Karun Nair dropped Shreyas Iyer twice in the same over Kuldeep Yadav, the turning point in Delhi Capitals’ loss.Surviving the odds, Iyer went on to smash an unbeaten 71 off 36 balls to guide the Punjab Kings to a six-wicket victory with seven balls to spare as they chased down a daunting target of 265 runs on Saturday.
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“We didn’t play good cricket” – Mahela Jayawardene after MI’s biggest IPL loss vs CSKIncidentally, the previous most successful run in T20 and IPL history also belongs to Punjab Kings who 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 haul of 152 – the third-highest individual IPL score – while Nitish Rana added 91 to take the hosts to 264/2.In reply, Prabhsimran Singh (76) and Priyansh Arya (73) got off to a flying start as they stitched together 126 runs in just 42 balls to lay the groundwork for the chase.“It was a good pitch and a small ground, so the sixes were always hit. But when chances come and you don’t take one, you throw away chances like we did today. On a wicket like that, if you don’t back your bowlers, it’s difficult. At the same time, we also have to look at our bowling unit. The way we played in the overs, the main reasons and reasons why we were bowlers, fast bowlers. like that, 264 was very good score, if you look at the positives, we scored 264, which is a record score in the Indian Premier League, which shows that if you get a bit lucky and have your catches, you can win two or three matches in a row,” said Axar.“If you look at the games we’re losing, a lot of them were close games. I said that even in the draw, if we can grab the decisive moments, then two or three results could have gone our way and we could have gone on to win. But the key is that you have to take advantage of those moments. You can’t come and repeat the same mistakes every time. So I think we can improve it again, we’ll see where we go,” he added.Punjab Kings remain unbeaten this season and sit on top of the points table with 13 points from seven matches.
