Former India cricketers Virender Sehwag and Manoj Tiwary criticised Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy after the Punjab Kings’ defeat against the Gujarat Titans on Sunday, May 3. Shubman Gill and Co. chased down a 164-run target with four wickets and one ball to spare. This turned out to be the Punjab Kings’ second consecutive defeat in IPL 2026.
Marcus Stoinis bowled the final over of the match, but the Australian all-rounder couldn’t defend 11 runs against the pair of Washington Sundar and Arshad Khan. On the other hand, Yuzvendra Chahal bowled just one over after being introduced into the attack in the 14th over.
Former India opener Virender Sehwag opined that Punjab captain Shreyas Iyer miscalculated his bowling plans and should have used Chahal much earlier in the innings with the ball.
“I think Shreyas Iyer’s calculations were a bit wrong, because he had to give the last over to Stoinis. If that last over was bowled by Arshdeep Singh, Xavier Bartlett, or Marco Jansen, then maybe PBKS could have won this match, because there were 11 runs to defend,” the former batter said on Cricbuzz.
“It was Shreyas Iyer’s decision to not bowl Chahal, and use his main bowlers till the 19th over, and hope that they take wickets. Even Iyer must have felt that this match might not go till the end like this. Where Chahal should have bowled in the middle overs, he was not used. I think that if he was brought earlier into the attack, then that might have been good. He could have bowled against Buttler,” he added.
There has been a mistake: Manoj Tiwary on Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy calls
Manoj Tiwary believes that Shreyas should have shown more trust in veteran spinner Chahal’s abilities instead of restricting him to bowling just one over. The latter conceded 13 runs in his solitary over after bowling to the left-handed duo of Sai Sudharsan and Sundar.
“There has been a mistake. According to me, it is not entirely right to blame Shreyas Iyer for that because when Chahal was brought on, he gave away 13 runs. But, he had the call to make to bring him on against two left-handers, because he could have conceded more runs or even not, he had to make that call. But I feel that you should always go with your experienced bowlers. If he gets hit in the first over, then there is no guarantee that he will go for runs again. He could have even bowled a good ball and brought them back into the game,” the former KKR player said on Cricbuzz.
Tiwary stated that captains have a preconceived notion that wrist spinners or left-arm spinners are not effective against left-handed batters.
“The thought that has gone into captains’ mind that if there are left-handed batters then they should not bowl wrist spinners or left-arm spin, that is quite difficult to understand. If you see the wicket-taking stats of Chahal, he is at the top of the list. So, that mistake, where Chahal was not bowled, did not leave Iyer options for the final over, where they could have defended,” he continued.
