Punjab Kings have been setting themselves to finish first and not third: Hopes

Punjab Kings have been setting themselves up to win the Indian Premier League and not settle for third place, asserted bowling coach James Hopes after the team stormed into the final with a five-wicket win over Mumbai Indians.

After falling short in Qualifier 1, Shreyas Iyer and Co. responded with a commanding performance in Qualifier 2 on Sunday, dismantling the five-time champions to set up a title clash with Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Tuesday.

“We’d been setting ourselves up for a couple of months the way that we were playing not to come third. We wanted to be in there with the chance to come first and we’ve given ourselves that chance now,” Hopes told the media on Sunday.

He acknowledged that while the group will be excited knowing they are one step away from lifting the trophy, he added they will have to brace for a huge “pro-Kohli” crowd here in the world’s largest stadium.

“It’s just a short turn around for us, we’ve finished at 2 am which is pretty late so tomorrow will be just about the guys recovering and getting mentally prepared for what I imagine is going to be a pretty big crowd and a pretty big pro Kohli crowd as well.”

Virat Kohli will be gunning for RCB’s maiden title but irrespective of the outcome, the tournament will have a new winner.

Iyer struck a 41-ball unbeaten 87 with eight sixes and five fours to make the difference in the Qualifier 2 and Hopes said the batter has been a “sensational captain” given the way he has led the team.

“He’s calm, doesn’t get flustered very easily and he knows his matchups. He knows what he has to do at certain times and he’s prepared to take that.” “When he was a younger player in Delhi (Capitals), he was a little bit more explosive and gung-ho, but he scores at a high strike right now strictly because he knows when a bowler comes on, that’s his matchup and he’s going to take it (on).”

“With his captaincy, tonight, we kept them to 200 (203/6), but I reckon they could have got 220 or 230 and just because the way he pulls the strings out there and manoeuvred (the) bowlers around,” the former Australian player added.

Hopes also backed 30-year-old Iyer to make his way back into the Indian Test team.

“He’s played well in the last 12 months in his time in the Indian short form teams. I know he’s not in the Test tour to go to the UK, but I’d imagine his name would have been spoken about pretty heavily, and that’s just the way some selections go. He’ll find his way back there, I’m sure,” he said.

Hopes said there wasn’t much brooding to do for his side after an eight-wicket hammering at the hands of RCB in Qualifier 1.

“The big thing with that game up in Chandigarh is (that you) don’t try to find a reason for it. Don’t look at, ‘oh, well, why did this happen? Why did that happen?’” he said.

“It just happened. If you look for the reason why it happened, you were going to get yourself going down a dark hole.” “We just kept saying our guys (that) we worked for two months to earn ourselves a second chance and we we’re now going to have to cash that second chance in. We don’t change the way we play,” he added.