Punjab Kings (PBKS) bowling coach James Hopes has issued a stern warning to Shreyas Iyer & Co. after the hammering they suffered at the hands of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in Qualifier 1 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.
James Hopes said that the batters should refrain from second-guessing themselves after the horror show in Qualifier 1, and they should back themselves to deliver a better performance in the next game.
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PBKS batting unit has looked great in the ongoing season of the Indian Premier League, and although they have had their lows, overall, the performance has looked top-notch, especially compared to the previous few seasons.
They entered the high-octane Qualifier 1 battle against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru with the second-best scoring rate (10.02) and a lot of batters having form under their belt.
However, the Punjab Kings were not prepared for what was about to happen to them at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium, Mullanpur, Chandigarh, on Thursday, May 29.
RCB bowlers looked threatening from the start, and they were breathing fire on the pitch that offered enough assistance. The young openers Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh got dismissed inside three overs, and from thereon, things only went downhill for PBKS
Shreyas Iyer, Josh Inglis, Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh, and Musheer Khan walked back to the hut within 8.5 overs. And the last three wickets of Marcus Stoinis, Harpreet Brar, and Azmatullah Omarzai fell in 10.3, 13.3, and 14.1 overs, respectively, as PBKS got bundled for 101. Then, RCB easily completed the run chase in 10 overs and won the match by 8 wickets.
No second-guessing, warns James Hopes to PBKS batters
During the post-match press conference, Punjab Kings bowling coach James Hopes urged the batters to just move on and forget about their outing against RCB. He said:
"We played the first over okay with the bat and then it sort of just snowballed from there. It's necessary that we digest it and move on from it by the end of tonight because we have to travel tomorrow [Friday] and we've got to get up to play another game on Sunday and we're going to do it the hard way now. But I hope we meet RCB again on Tuesday night [in the final]."
"The worst thing our batters can do now is blink and start jumping at shadows and second-guessing themselves," he said in a major warning to the PBKS batters.
"Our batters were a little bit reckless, but they have counter-attacked the whole year and it's worked the majority of the time. It didn't work tonight," he added.
To be honest we didn't have a great night with the bat but... - James Hopes
James Hopes further said that they didn't perform well against RCB, but have worked hard and are well-deserving of getting a second chance to make it to the final on June 3.
"To be honest we didn't have a great night with the bat but we have a two-day turnaround now to play another final, to earn the right. We've worked for two and a bit months to earn the right to have a second chance and we're going to cash that second chance in hopefully.
"Historically, it [Ahmedabad] is a very good pitch and we know we're going to have to go quite hard and score quite quickly. It's not back to the drawing board by any means. We've worked two and a half months to get into a position where we get a second opportunity and we're going to have to use that second opportunity now," Hopes said.
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