After his side's 28-run defeat against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 on Sunday, Punjab Kings (PBKS) pacer Harshal Patel said they need to play good cricket in the upcoming matches.
Harshal picked up three wickets and gave 24 runs in his four-over spell at an economy rate of 6.00. He removed Dhoni for a golden duck in the fifth ball of the 19th over.
While speaking at the post-match press conference, Harshal said they are still in the race to qualify for the playoffs. He added it can happen only when they start playing "high-quality" cricket in IPL 2024.
"We just need to play good cricket. In terms of the playoff race, in 13 years of playing IPL, I have never seen a team out of the playoffs race or qualified before 13-14 games are done. We are still in the race and as a team, we know when we play high-quality cricket and everyone knows their job well, we know we can beat any team on any ground," Harshal said after the match.
The pacer praised Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh for helping PBKS recovering in the second inning after losing two quick wickets.
"I think with that opening spell, we were still in the game when Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh were batting. Even though we lost two early wickets, we recovered with Prabhsimran and Shashank in the middle during the powerplay.
"I think we were quite settled at that point. If we had made better choices on which bowlers to target, we could have a different conclusion to the game," he added.
