Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer didn’t hold back after his team’s fourth straight loss in IPL 2026. Delhi Capitals chased down a big 211-run target, leaving Punjab with just three wickets to defend in Dharamsala. Honestly, Punjab looked sloppy in the field. They dropped a couple of sitters. Even though Arshdeep Singh and Yash Thakur struck early, they couldn’t turn the momentum. David Miller and Axar Patel both hammered fifties and basically took the game away.
After the match, Shreyas admitted the team just didn’t plan well enough. He even felt they had 30 more runs than necessary for this pitch, given the seam and the unpredictable bounce.
He didn’t mince his words: “I’ll be direct. Fielding and bowling, again. I really think 210 was more than enough—probably 30 over par on this wicket, especially with the ball doing a bit and the bounce all over the place.
“About using Chahal, I definitely considered it, but watching the ball seam around, I felt if our fast bowlers had nailed their lines and lengths, we could’ve picked up more wickets. But, again, it just didn’t happen. The key is to bowl into the pitch, keep it on a hard length, especially for new batters. They can’t just hit through those. If you keep hammering that length, you force a mistake. We’ve simply fallen short in our planning,” Shreyas said.
PBKS started well with Priyansh Arya cracking 56 off 33 and Prabhsimran Singh adding 18. Together, they racked up 78 for the first wicket in just 41 balls. After they left, Shreyas Iyer (who stayed unbeaten on 59) and Cooper Connolly (38 from 27) kept the runs flowing, and Punjab ended up with 210 for five.
Chasing, Delhi Capitals ran into trouble early, dropping to 74 for four. But then Axar Patel (56) and David Miller (51) steadied the ship and dragged them back. In the end, Ashutosh Sharma and Madhav Tiwari got the job done, chasing down the target with 216 for seven by the 19th over.
Mitchell Starc (2 for 57) and Madhav Tiwari (2 for 40) grabbed a couple of wickets each for Delhi. For Punjab, Arshdeep Singh was tidy as ever with 2 for 21, while Ben Dwarshuis and Marcus Stoinis chipped in with one wicket each
