Sam Curran put in another poor display as PBKS crashed to a defeat against GT, on Sunday. After the match, Virender Sehwag lashed out at the all-rounder.
With the absence of Shikhar Dhawan due to injury, Punjab Kings’ IPL 2024 season is getting totally derailed. The Preity Zinta co-owned franchise crashed to a narrow three-wicket defeat against Gujarat Titans on Sunday, and they remained in their lowly ninth position in the standings.
Gujarat Titans’ captain Shubman Gill and Punjab Kings’ captain Sam Curran during the toss.(PTI)
This was Punjab’s fourth-straight defeat, as they fell to a match-winning unbeaten blitz by Rahul Tewatia. In Dhawan’s absence, Sam Curran has taken over the captaincy role, but has failed to impress with both bat and ball.
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The all-rounder was dismissed for 20 off 19 balls against GT, in a match where he also opened the batting for Punjab. Meanwhile, he only took one wicket in two overs, leaking 18 runs.
Speaking on Cricbuzz, India legend Virender Sehwag criticised PBKS’ batting approach and questioned their decision to not promote in-form batters higher up the order. Sehwag also questioned Curran’s role in the team and had a stern message for the side’s management.
“If I was in the PBKS dugout, I would not even pick him in my team, neither as a batting all-rounder nor as a bowling all-rounder. I wouldn’t pick him”, he said.
“A player is not of any use, if he can bowl a bit and bat a bit. You either bat properly and win us the match, or you bowl and win us the game. This bits and pieces part I don’t understand,” he added.
Curran has only managed 152 runs in eight innings this season, at a strike rate of 116.03. Also, he has only managed one half-century. In the bowling front, he has taken 11 wickets for PBKS.
Meanwhile, Curran felt that PBKS were 10-15 runs short against GT. Speaking after the match, he said, “I think so (we were 10-15 short).”
Curran also felt that Punjab performed poorly after the powerplay, and now are in a do-or-die situation. “That is the third time we have used that pitch, anything above 160 would have been a par total but we still fought well. Prabhsimran played really well in the powerplay but unfortunately we lost a cluster of wickets after that. Now we know what to do, we have to win every game,” he said.
