PBKS bowling coach James lauds skipper Iyer for being composed as his 87 not out ensures five-wicket win over Mumbai Indians in Qualifier 2; MI coach Jayawardene admits Punjab batters put his team under pressure
Punjab Kings’s Shreyas Iyer embraces MI captain Hardik Pandya following the latter’s defeat in Ahmedabad on Sunday. Pic/Getty Images
Shreyas Iyer was classically belligerent, but exuded Zen-like calmness at the crease on Sunday. He turned every Mumbai Indians ploy to his advantage, ensuring a title date for Punjab Kings (PBKS) with Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Tuesday here.
Iyer’s 87 off 41 balls, including eight sixes, made MI’s total of 203 look inadequate in a rain-soaked Qualifier 2. He was on 19 off 15 balls when he changed gears with a hat-trick of sixes off seamer Reece Topley (13th over). He then finished the game with four sixes in six balls off pacer Ashwani Kumar. However, the shot of the tournament from Iyer’s blade came in the 18th over, when he jammed his bat and angled it slightly to guide a perfectly executed Jasprit Bumrah yorker past short third man for a boundary. That shot was calmness and precision personified. “It was a very classy knock,” PBKS bowling coach James Hopes said at the post-match press conference in the wee hours of Monday after the match was pushed forward by an hour due to rain.
James Hopes
Hopes said Iyer’s calmness stood out. “Shreyas is calm, doesn’t get flustered easily. He knows his matchups and what he has to do at certain times and is prepared to take that on. With his captaincy tonight, we kept them to 200 [203-6]. They could’ve got 220 or 230 but [they didn’t] just because of how he pulled the strings and manoeuvred [the] bowlers around,” added Hopes, who also hailed the contributions from Josh Inglis (38 off 21) and Nehal Wadhera (48 off 29), and credited his side for neutralising the threat posed by MI’s ace pacer Jasprit Bumrah.
MI head coach Mahela Jayawardene reckoned PBKS’s execution was better. “We had a really good game in the first half, except that the Kings played better. With the bat, they were solid, chasing 200. It wasn’t easy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iyer was fined Rs 24 lakh (team’s second offence) while MI’s Hardik Pandya was fined Rs 30 lakh (third offence) for slow over rates.
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