Punjab Kings captain Sam Curran rued his team’s poor start with the bat after the loss against Rajasthan Royals on Saturday (April 13). With captain Shikhar Dhawan out due to an issue, the all-rounder led the Punjab-based team.
However, he was unable to guide them to a much-needed victory. When asked to bat first, PBKS started their innings disastrously and were reeling at 70 for 5 at one point.
Jitesh Sharma (29) and Liam Livingstone (21) took the score past the 100-run mark before a 16-ball, 31-run cameo from Ashutosh Sharma helped them finish with a respectable total of 147/8.
PBKS also couldn’t end their innings on a strong note. In the end, they could only muster six runs and it finally came back to haunt them as RR chased down the total with just one ball remaining.
RR needed 10 runs from the final over and Shimron Hetmyer hit Arshdeep Singh for two sixes to take his team home.
Speaking at the end of the game, Sam Curran pointed out his team’s poor start with the bat, as well as the failure to finish the innings well. At the same time, he also praised the lower team for bringing the team to close to 150.
“The wicket was a little slow but we didn’t start well with the bat and didn’t finish well at the end. It was a good effort from the lower order, getting to 150 was excellent, the bowling was good, we held on unfortunately, another close loss,” Sam Curran said.
Sam Curran confident of recovery:
Additionally, Sam Curran said he is confident his team will bounce back in the next game. He also talked about playing in the new stadium and admitted that it is difficult to fully understand the conditions after only three games. The England star also said that the narrow defeats in the last two matches will give the players confidence.
“We stuck to our plans, pitched and fielded well, but I’m sure we’ll bounce back in the next game.
“Three matches is a difficult way to fully resolve the conditions (at the new venue), but we have adapted well, we won the first match and lost two matches narrowly (by 2 runs and 3 wickets), difficult to overcome.” take, but the boys will be encouraged by how well we’ve played the last two games,” Sam Curran said.
PBKS will be in action next Thursday (April 18) when they take on Mumbai Indians.