Still in contention for IPL playoffs: Harshal

Chandigarh, May 6

Despite going down by 28 runs against Chennai Super Kings in their first home game at Dharamsala, Punjab Kings pacer Harshal Patel still believes that the side has bright chances of making it to the playoffs of the ingoing Indian Premier League.

After electing to bowl, Punjab restricted the opposition to 167/9 with superb spells from Rahul Chahar and Patel.

“We just need to play good cricket. In terms of the playoff race, in 13 years of playing IPL, I have never seen a team out of the playoffs race or qualified before 13-14 games are done. We are still in the race and as a team, we know when we play high-quality cricket and everyone knows their job well, we know we can beat any team on any ground,” said the right-arm fast bowler.

He further added, “I think with that opening spell, we were still in the game when Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh were batting. Even though we lost two early wickets, we recovered with Prabhsimran and Shashank in the middle during the powerplay. I think we were quite settled at that point. If we had made better choices on which bowlers to target, we could have a different conclusion to the game.”

Punjab will next face off against the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the same venue under the lights on May 9, and patel opened up on the learnings for his side ahead of the crucial next game.

“I think coming into this game, we thought that this would be a high-scoring venue because of the size of the boundary. Usually, this pitch has a lot of pace and bounce. But it was not like that, especially today. The next game we play will be a night game. So, it might be a little different and we might see 30-40 more runs on the surface. The lessons we have learned is that if we bowl hard length, close to the stumps, and keep stumps in play at all times, there is enough reward for bowlers and shot-making is difficult from that length,” he said.