Former Indian spinner Murali Kartik reckons Shreyas Iyer’s slow knock against the Rajasthan Royals had a direct impact on the game. PBKS suffered their first loss of the season as they could not defend the target of 223 against the inaugural champions.

Asked to bat first by Riyan Parag, PBKS got off to a flying start with Priyansh Arya teeing off in style. However, Shreyas Iyer struggled to change his gears in the middle overs as he scored 30 runs off 27 balls with the help of one four and one six, scoring his runs at a strike rate of 111.11.

“In matches like these, you see where the match was lost. In my opinion, the way Shreyas Iyer could not play today, that mattered in the end. What do you expect from Shreyas Iyer? When the spinners come in, he blows them away with the form that he is in. But he could not do that today. His strike rate of 111-115 ultimately mattered a lot,” Murali Kartik said on Cricbuzz.

“If you see PBKS’ batting, some players have scored at a strike rate of 260, 280, and even 180, but then there were two players stuck in the middle where 15-20 extra runs could have been scored,” he added.

On the other hand, PBKS skipper Shreyas Iyer felt the total of 222 runs was a par score, but he felt they could not execute their plans with the ball.

“I thought 224 on the board was a brilliant score. Kudos to the batsmen, the way they came up and they went against the bowlers. I think it was an exceptional performance, especially on this wicket, which was a bit tacky and slow. And I think we fell a bit short in our bowling, in terms of execution. We had planned to bowl a lot of slower ones, pace off, yorkers. I think we fell a bit short over there,” Shreyas Iyer said during the post-match presentation.

Punjab Kings will next take on Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, on Sunday.