IPL 2018 | We would love to have someone other than Rahul to stand up, says Andrew Tye

Kings XI Punjab started their Indian Premier League 2018 with a flier but unfortunately lost the momentum towards the end of the league as the team could only manage to get past the line once in the last five matches they have played. Thanks to their electric start, they are still third on the table with 12 points from 11 games and on track for a playoff spot, but to get there, they need to win at least two matches from their remaining three encounters.

While the opening duo of KL Rahul and Chris Gayle have handed them the victory on many occasions, the middle order has been below par so far. Though they have two of the most destructive batsmen in the top of the order, and in Andrew Tye - the purple cap holder - and Mujeeb Ur Rahman, they have two of the best bowlers too. The defeats have mainly come due to the irresponsible batting of the middle order.

In the match against Kolkata Knight Riders on Saturday, Rahul smashed 66 off 29 and Tye took 4 for 41 in a match where Kolkata Knight Riders racked up 245 for 6. However, if both of them could have got more support from others, the team could have well ended up winning the match.

In the post-match presser, when the question was asked to Tye, he didn’t have anything to hide from media and directly blamed the batting department and expressed his wish for them to come good in upcoming matches.

“Definitely, we’d love to have someone other than KL stand up and go with KL – put a couple of performances on and really sort of hammer it home. Finchy (Aaron Finch who made 34 of 20) stood up a bit today but, you know he was doing the team thing trying to get what he could because it was do or die at that stage. But yes, it is disappointing we are not getting our consistency with our batting. And I felt our bowling probably let off 20 or 30 runs too many today,” answered the Australian.

On his own success, Tye replied that he is someone, who would like to keep the batsmen guessing and he is innovating new ways to get the better of them. 

“I try not to be too predictable. Batsmen know that I’m going to bowl a slower ball more often than not, so I have to keep coming up with ways to catch them off-guard, whether it be a quicker ball or a wider slower ball or a short slower ball. Just basically not be too predictable and try and keep them guessing as much as I can.”