Sunday’s fixture against Chennai Super Kings was a must win one for Kings XI Punjab but unfortunately they failed to do so and lost the match by 9 wickets.
Batting first, Punjab put up a total of 153 runs with the loss of 6 wickets and Chennai had no pressure at all. Chennai Super Kings very comfortably won the match with the courtesy of Rituraj Gaikwad’s 62 of 49 balls and Faf De Plessis’ 48 of 34 balls.
With this loss Punjab ended their run in this year’s Indian Premier League. They lost 8 of their 14 fixtures and currently standing at the 5th spot in the points table. However, they will finish lower in the table as either Kolkata Knight Riders or Rajasthan Royals will be finishing above them.
With his sensible knock of 62 runs, Rituraj Gaikwad was chosen as the Man of the Match. In the post match conference he said, “I was scoring well in the domestic arena in every format, so I was feeling confident. Even for my club and state team, I had to be the anchor, make sure the team wins and stay till the end.”
The losing captain KL Rahul in the post match conference said, “We didn’t bat really well. Big pressure game, we expected 180-190. We couldn’t soak in the pressure.”
He further added, “It is disappointing. We had a lot of games in our pockets and we couldn’t get over the line and we ony have ourselves to blame. That short run game too, looks like it has come back to bite us.”
The winning captain MS Dhoni sent a small message for all the fans. He said, “We’ll come back strong. That’s what we’re known for. Dhoni also said that CSK will look to change the core group next season. “We need to slightly change our core group and looks for the next ten years. At the start of the IPL we made a team that served us well for ten years. It’s time to hand it over to the next generation”.
With this match, both Chennai Super Kings and Kings XI Punjab ends their campaign for the 2020 edition of Indian Premier League.