IPL 2018 - MIvKXIP: Furious Andrew Tye accuses Kings XI Punjab of failing to give whole team effort

Andrew Tye does not come across as an angry 31-year-old. He enjoys bowling in limited-overs and his T20 success back home in Australia fetched him a maiden IPL contract for Gujarat Lions in 2017 and now, with Kings XI Punjab this edition.

Tye, however, is unhappy now-a-days, especially after his bowling efforts for KXIP are not supported by the others in the team. So much so that after his 4/16 in a losing cause against Mumbai Indians on Wednesday night here, the Western Australian right-arm medium-pacer said that a majority of his team-mates have let him down.

“It is not a whole team effort,” Tye said after the three-run loss to MI. “It's bitterly disappointing that we did not win against Mumbai tonight. We figured that (186) was probably about par score on that wicket. We had the firepower in our team to chase it down and we could not do it. Doesn't really matter if I take 4/16 or someone else takes 4/16.

“It means obviously someone else has let you down and it's not a whole team effort. That is something that we've struggled for a lot this IPL. We haven't had enough boys standing up other than KL (Rahul) with the bat or myself and Mujeeb (ur Rahman) with the ball. So yeah, fair credit to Mumbai. I personally feel they won the game with their fielding. In a close match like that, they made a couple of really good saves on the boundary, chased a couple of balls down and, you know, that makes a difference when you lose the match by about five runs.”

Such has been the bane of KXIP that apart from Rahul and Chris Gayle with the bat, and Tye and Rahman, this the Afghanistan freak bowler was injured, with the ball, none has made a worthwhile contribution. Their middle-order with the bat has been a misery.

That KXIP are still in with an outside chance for the play-offs is because of all the good deed done by those mentioned above.
KXIP won five of their first seven matches before taking a clear seven-day break. On return, they won only one in their last five. Did the break disturb their momentum?

Tye does not give excuses. “I don't think so. Sure, you can look at it and say we lost momentum after that break but at the same time we didn't have anyone else stand up. You know, in the first few games we have KL, Gayle and Karun who'd scored half-centuries or a century. But if you look at it since the break, KL is the only batsman who's gone past fifty. As good as our bowling attack is, we haven't been putting up complete performance as a team with both bat and the ball and that sums up why we probably haven't won games lately.”

Tye, who took 5/17 on his IPL debut in 2017 (Gujarat Lions vs Rising Pune Supergiant), was not hopeful of his team qualifying with the way they have been playing as a unit.

“It's really hard. It's up to individuals to fix it,” he said when asked how the team would arrest this slide. “Being able to get out there and once they realise they're out there and the team needs him or they need something special from him, just being able to not put too much pressure on themselves. I don't know, I just hope we're able to find a way and if it happens this year and we're lucky to make finals, that's great. But hopefully moving forward, we can address that issue and really be strong competitor in this competition in the next few years.”

It is a shame that Kings XI Punjab have the Purple Cap and Orange Cap holders by a distance and the team has had dismal results.