We look forward to playing a perfect game to qualify: Mayank

In the most important clash of the season, Punjab Kings won the toss and opted to bowl at the DY Patil Stadium, a move that looked positive. Liam Livingstone bowled the perfect first over, sending the in-form David Warner back to the pavilion. 

Despite gaining control early on, the partnership between Sarfaraz Khan and Mitchell Marsh changed the complexion of the encounter, as Delhi posted 159. Chasing the total, barring the innings from Jitesh Sharma, who scored a 34-ball 44, the rest of the batting unit faltered under pressure to hand Delhi a 17-run win. 

PBKS skipper Mayank Agarwal rued the loss but hoped that the franchise would be looking to play a perfect game to qualify for the knock-out stage of the tournament. 

“It's still a match to be played and a match to be won. Two points are crucial for us. We want to go out there and play the best cricket. I think we haven't yet played our best cricket yet and we look forward to doing that in the last game. We need to speak about the way we went about things with the bat, but that's about it. It's a game to forget,” Mayank said at the post-match presentation. 

On this encounter, Mayank reflected stating that the franchise didn’t quite bat well between overs five and ten of the run-chase. With 12 points in 13 encounters, Punjab would have to depend on a lot of other results to qualify. 

"We didn't bat well. Between overs 5 and 10, we lost too many wickets and that's where we lost the game. I thought it was definitely chaseable for the batting we have and the wicket wasn't as bad as it seemed. We just lost too many wickets between the 5th and 10th over and lost the game there."