Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer tried to remain optimistic despite his side crashing to a sixth consecutive defeat in IPL 2026 after the 23-run loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Dharamshala on Sunday. But even while speaking about staying mentally strong ahead of the final league phase game against Lucknow Super Giants, Iyer admitted that he would remain positive and maintain a strong attitude.
“I’m always positive irrespective of the results. It doesn’t dictate how my personality is and I always approach with a strong attitude,” Iyer said after the defeat.
“I’m not someone who dwells too much in the past. This is over, this is gone. Tomorrow again I’m going to see the sunrise and there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.”
PBKS eventually ended with 199/8 in 20 overs, after recovering from early setbacks, but Iyer felt the poor start with the bat had already left them chasing the game.“I think getting to 222 was a commendable performance and we weren’t able to take wickets in the bowling that much, but yeah, I think the match was lost in the powerplay,” he said.
PBKS were reduced to 19/3 early, with the top order failing to provide the explosive start that had defined much of their campaign this season.“We were three down and the majority of our run scorers were Prabhsimran and Priyansh. The starts they used to give us in the powerplay, obviously we couldn’t get this time and also me coming in and getting out early,” Iyer admitted.
Despite the defeat, the Punjab captain praised the effort from the middle order, particularly Marcus Stoinis and Shashank Singh, for helping the side recover after the collapse.“Really disappointed, but commendable performance by Shashank and Stoinis and also a few others in the middle. I think we were up there with almost 10 an over, but yeah, fell short,” he said.
Iyer also credited RCB’s experienced pace attack for putting Punjab under pressure right from the beginning.“Tremendous bowling by Bhuvi and Hazlewood,” he added.
