MOHALI: A gutted Delhi Capitals’ captain Shreyas Iyer said that he was “speechless” after his team lost seven wickets for eight runs in their 14-run defeat to Kings XI Punjab in an Indian Premier League (IPL) encounter here on Monday.

Chasing 167, DC were 144/3 in the 17th over and were subsequently bowled out for 152 in 19.2 overs.
“I am really speechless. It was a crucial match and losing such matches is not going to benefit us,” Iyer said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

“Really disappointing. With the way we were going, we came to run-a-ball and to lose from there, really disappointing. We didn’t play smart cricket and Punjab outplayed us in all the departments. They were really cool and calm in that situation. Our batsmen did not take initiative to win the game,” the skipper said.

A delighted KXIP skipper Ravichandran Ashwin said that they were waiting for Rishabh Pant to make a mistake and cash in from thereon.

“When Rishabh hit the six, we just needed to hang in there. Credit to (Mohammed) Shami and (Sam) Curran. We were probably 25 runs short. We backed ourselves to defend with three spinners.”

KXIP’s Sam Curran took the first hat-trick of this season and finished with figures of 4/11.