It Was My Day, I Took That Responsibility: Mayank Agarwal After Winning The Player Of The Match For His Unbeaten 99

There aren’t many timed when you are on a losing side but you still end up winning the ‘Player of the Match’ award but such was the impact of Mayank Agarwal’s innings that it would have been cruel had he not been awarded the same.

On a day where he replaced regular skipper and fellow opening partner, KL Rahul, as stand-in skipper, Mayank Agarwal spearheads his batting unit with a classy unbeaten 58-ball 99 to help his team get to 6/166.

For most parts of the innings, Punjab Kings never looked like getting close to what they got as their batsmen sans Mayank Agarwal scored just 62 runs in as many deliveries.

But Mayank’s late over flourish including the 23-run final six balls ensured that they got to 166 but, eventually, the target proved to be inadequate as the classy Shikhar Dhawan smashed an unbeaten 47-ball 69* to spearhead a seven-wicket win.

Speaking at the post-match presentation, Mayank said that it was important for a batsman to stay till the end and he proceeded to take that responsibility.

He, however, lamented at the defeat, stating that the kind of powerplay that the Delhi Capitals got, it was difficult for his bowler to stop the batsmen after that, despite best efforts from Harpreet Brar. He hailed Brar besides adding that the team needs to keep persisting as one single unit in such difficult times.

“KL Rahul is going for a surgery and hopefully he should be back. Would’ve liked two points but I guess we were about 10 short on that wicket. And the kind of powerplay they had we really had to scrap and fight. One batsman has to bat through, that was my plan. It was my day, I took that responsibility,” said Mayank Agarwal in the post-match presentation.

”Unfortunately, we didn’t get too many in the middle overs, even though we finished well. Would have loved two points more than anything else. But it is what it is. We have to shut this off, turn up the next game and do better. Managing the ups and downs is what captaincy’s all about. Kudos to Harpreet who showed up for us today and last game as well, he also hit a crucial boundary. We need to keep at it and click as a team,” he signed off.

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