After losing by four wickets to the Rajasthan Royals in their last league game of the IPL 2023, the Punjab Kings dropped out of the event because they didn’t make it to the playoffs. It was a disappointing way to end the season. Shikhar Dhawan, their captain, looked at how they did in the 16th edition of the event and said that they did well in patches. Sometimes the batters did well, and sometimes the bowlers did. He also said that because the team is young, everyone has learned a lot this season. He also said that the team could have done better in some areas, like catching, which was very bad all season.
“The bowling was good sometimes, but the defense wasn’t great. We lost the game because we dropped too many catches. I think we could have done better in everything. We had some good batting and some good bowling, but we couldn’t put those good efforts together. We’re a young team, so we’ve learned a lot this season,” Dhawan said during the show after the game.
Shikhar Dhawan looks at why they lost to the Rajasthan Royals.
When the home team batted first, they got off to a bad start, but Sam Curran and Jitesh Sharma put together 64 runs to bring PBKS back into the game. In the end, the England player hit 49 runs off 31 balls, while the stumper-hitter hit 44 runs off 28 balls. Shahrukh Khan caused trouble at the end of the inning by getting 41 runs off 23 balls. This helped PBKS get 187 runs in the first inning. Shikhar Dhawan praised the players and said that the team could have made 200 runs on this wicket.
“We lost too many wickets in the powerplay, which put us behind, but Sam Curran, Jitesh Sharma, and Shahrukh Khan helped us get back in the game. On this pitch, I think 200 should have been a good score,” Dhawan said after the game.