Last Updated on 9 months ago by Charbel Coorey

KL Rahul recalls controversial ‘short run’ in KXIP’s unsuccessful run | Kings XI Punjab miss out on playoffs and recall key moments in their season

Kings XI Punjab gave a tough fight in the last few matches in IPL 2020, but eventually ended on a harsh note. In last night’s match, Chennai Super Kings won the game by 9 wickets and pushed KL Rahul’s team out of playoffs contention. Rahul pointed out that the controversial short run call against the Delhi Capitals match has eventually come back to bite them very hard.

In Punjab’s first match this season, Nitin Menon was umpiring the 19th over and Chris Jordan and Mayank Agarwal were on the pitch. Replays suggest that Jordan’s bat has gone past the crease by Menon gave it a short run call, which lead to a Super Over which the Capitals won. Rahul also mentioned the controversial umpiring in reference to how the KXIP lost some of the easy wins that has lead the team to drop out of the running.

Kings XI CEO Satish Menon had then said that, there is no room for human errors like these in a world-class tournament like the IPL. “This one could cost us a playoff berth”, he said to PTI.

“A lot could have [been different],” KL Rahul told the host broadcaster after the match against the Super Kings. “It was disappointing. If you look back, there were times where we had a lot of games in our pockets, (but) we couldn’t get over the line and finish. Then we only have ourselves to blame. Starting with the first game, the short run, looking back at it, it’s come back to bite us very hard. It’s life – we all make mistakes, we’ve made a few mistakes this season as a team, we need to accept it, learn from it and come back.”

The Kings XI had lost six of the first seven matches and it was their win against Bangalore that sparked new momentum in the team and they went on to win five games in a row becoming a strong contender for the playoffs. “We didn’t have results going our way in the first half. The team still felt we were playing good cricket, we were patchy at times, the bowling and batting didn’t come together in the first half, but the second half we started doing that really well. Really proud that we gave ourselves an opportunity to come in the top four and unfortunate that today and yesterday’s game didn’t go our way but there’s a lot of things to proud of as a team, so hopefully come back stronger next year and forget this year”, Rahul said.

Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.