R Ashwin is hopeful that the likes of Aaron Finch, Karun Nair and Mayank Agarwal will find form as Kings XI Punjab look to win their remaining two matches against defending champions Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings to qualify for IPL 2018 play-offs. Ashwin said that \u2018good players come good at big moments\u2019, something he experienced during his time with CSK.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing is to forget the 12 games. I\u2019ve been in a team like CSK where we used to do this all the time. We had batsmen who found the going tough throughout the tournament but went on to score a 90-odd in the final. That\u2019s how it goes,\u201d Ashwin said after Kings XI Punjab\u2019s loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Holkar Stadium here on Monday.<\/p>\n
Leaving openers KL Rahul and Chris Gayle, no other KXIP batsman has shown stomach for a fight and this has been one of the major factors why they have lost five of their last six games.<\/p>\n
Against RCB, Rahul and Gayle put on a 36-run stand but their departure led to a collapse as KXIP were knocked over for 88, their lowest total this season. Except Finch, Nair, Agarwal and Marcus Stoinis couldn\u2019t even cross the double figures. Virat Kohli\u2019s side eventually won the match by 10 wickets.<\/p>\n
While Ashwin accepted his team\u2019s frailties, he said there is no reason why KXIP can\u2019t make a comeback.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we were very poor. It was a day when nothing clicked for us. But that happens,\u201d said Ashwin.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, we haven\u2019t been one of the top champion sides in IPL. We actually punched way above our weight in the first half of the competition (this year). But things haven\u2019t gone our way in the last few games. To be precise, I didn\u2019t expect this. But I think it\u2019s time for everyone to step up. We have lost three in a row. Mumbai is a place where there\u2019s a lot of bounce and generally the foreign batsmen love it. So I\u2019m confident we will bounce back.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are desperate. Any team can be dangerous they are desperate,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Asked about Mujeeb Ur Rahman, who missed the game against RCB after being hit on his bowling hand in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders, Ashwin said: \u201cHis injury is quite serious. We will assess his fitness before the next match.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
R Ashwin is hopeful that the likes of Aaron Finch, Karun Nair and Mayank Agarwal will find form as Kings XI Punjab look to win their remaining two matches against defending champions Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings to qualify for IPL 2018 play-offs. Ashwin said that \u2018good players come good at big moments\u2019, something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31137,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31138,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31136\/revisions\/31138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}