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Punjab Kings (PBKS) suffered a last-ball defeat against Gujarat Titans (GT) in their previous Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Friday (April 8). Many of the club's fans were irate after Odean Smith's overthrow brought Rahul Tewatia onto the strike, after which he hit two consecutive sixes to seal the match.
However, Punjab's pace bowler Arshdeep Singh believes that a lot is being made of that overthrow, which proved decisive in the end, “If you look back (not just in the previous game), there are a lot of instances where you would want to change things. However, we don’t want to think about those on match days. We do look into the game the next day briefly to discuss the previous day’s game, both what all we did well and the potential areas of improvement."
“I guess, these questions are being raised given the result. Had we won the match in this scenario, we would not be asked these questions," he added.
The Titans were chasing 190 runs and needed 19 off the final over. Odean was tasked with defending the last over and started well, with a dot ball also yielding a run-out of skipper Hardik Pandya. That wicket brought Tewatia to the crease, who then managed to pick a single. In the next delivery, David Miller hit a boundary to keep GT in the game.
Miller tried to free his arms in the next ball but an overthrow by Odean brought Tewatia back on strike. The 28-year-old took advantage of the situation, hitting the Jamaican over deep mid-wicket. The fielder nearly caught Tewatia before falling over the rope, and then he slog-swept the final delivery over the long-on boundary for a massive six as they snatched victory from the jaws of Punjab.
Arshdeep also said that the team did not let their emotions get in the way as they had already played plenty of nerve-wracking games to get rattled by such roller-coaster situations, "The PBKS as a unit has played a lot of exciting games over the last few years. Our emotions are pretty stable now, having played a lot of matches that are down to the last over or even the last delivery. So we do not look at the situation in hand any differently. At any point, we try to stay stable as a team, whether we win or lose, and enjoy our cricket."
