IPL 2025: Shreyas Iyer Slams 'Befuddled' Punjab Kings Batters After Loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru But Says Team 'Lost Battle, Not The War'

Heading into Qualifier 1 of the IPL 2025, everyone was excited to see a match between the two teams who finished 1st and 2nd in the Indian Premier League points table this season - Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Punjab Kings. In the end, the match was a one-sided thrashing as RCB registered an eight-wicket win over PBKS. And the result was one that left skipper Shreyas Iyer fuming. [PBKS v RCB HIGHLIGHTS]

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Coming into the match, PBKS were considered slight favourites due to the fact that they topped the table and would be playing this crucial cricket game at home. 

However, they ended up slumping to a huge defeat thanks in no small part to some excellent RCB bowling on the night. 

Shreyas Iyer Questions PBKS Batters

But skipper Shreyas was asking a lot of questions of his batters after the match, claiming his batting unit looked ‘befuddled’ because of the pitch.

"We were befuddled and lost a lot of wickets. That is something for us to go back and study. We have got to work on our batting on this wicket," Iyer said after the match.

He further added that the team had played here before and knew that it was an uneven pitch, so using the way the wicket behaved was absolutely not an excuse. 

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“In all games here, there has been variable bounce. We can't give such reasons because we are professionals and we have to live up to it.”

PBKS Down But Not Yet Out

The good news for PBKS, of course, is that they can still make it to the final as they will play Qualifier 2. And that is what led Shreyas to cut a confident figure despite the loss. 

"We have lost the battle but not the war," he said defiantly.

PBKS will face the winner of the Mumbai Indians vs Gujarat Titans Eliminator game on June 1 (Sunday).