IPL 2018: R Ashwin positive of play-offs berth despite 5th defeat

Kings XI Punjab captain Ravichandran Ashwin was disappointed with their bowling effort as they suffered a 31-run defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders at the Holkar Stadium in Indore.

Punjab leaked away too many runs and were staring at a mammoth target of 246 from their 20 overs after the end of the first innings and Ashwin felt that it was a bit too many.

"245 was a little too many. We didn't execute our plans really well. The bowlers were just caught under the fire. They were all over the place up front and in the middle overs as well and it cost us the game at the latter end. The yorkers weren't falling in the right place," said Ashwin.

"When Dre Russ came in to bat it was quite evident that we needed to bowl wider and then change up with the yorkers. It wasn't going to plan, it wasn't our day to be honest," he added.

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But amidst the negatives, the only positive that he could come out of this match is that KXIP didn't lose by a huge margin. Although Punjab continued to lose wickets, Ashwin hung on their somehow and managed to score 45 off 21 balls to take Punjab to 214/8 from their 20 overs.

What that meant is Punjab didn't allow their run-rate to fall too much and still stayed on No. 3 on the points table. And Ashwin felt that they can still make it to the play-offs.

"I would say we have got ourselves into an interesting situation. We still have got enough games to try and get through to the play-offs. One positive is we have never lost a game that's been hands down. The middle-order has been a concern for us and that's why we brought in Finchy. He hit the ball well. He is a world-class player and I am sure he will come good," said Ashwin.

The Kolkata batsmen made full use of some loose bowling from the KXIP bowlers, who were without one of their talisman Mujeeb Ur Rahman after he was struck on his hand by a Sunil Narine shot. Mujeeb was attempting to take Narine's catch off his own bowling in the fourth over but he failed to grab on to the ball which hit his right hand quite hard. Kings XI physio had to attend to the Afghanistan cricketer on the field but then decided to take off the Afghan cricketer. However, he came back to bowl one more over but couldn't continue. And Ashwin felt that losing him early affected them.

"Mujeeb got injured very early and a couple of inside edges went at the start of the game. If we had batted a touch better it would have been a closer game than what it was. It is a small ground, but we don't want to give that as an excuse," said the Tamil Nadu tweaker.

Punjab have three games left and will play Royal Challengers Bangalore, Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings respectively in their remaining matches.