MOHALI: Kings XI Punjab skipper Ravichandran Ashwin is hopeful that the management will do its bit to ensure continuity as the formula of buying talented players with big bucks and expecting results right away doesn't work in a top-flight league like IPL.
Kings XI Punjab for the second season in a row have failed to qualify for the knock-outs but the India international spoke about retaining core team as any expensive buys can't get results overnight.
"If you look at all the successful franchises, they retained the core they got, we really need to start producing players and have that core if you are actually going to looking at it take forward," Ashwin said at the media interaction.
"It is not like you are going to buy something and end up winning the next day, so it is very important for us to keep adding strength to that dressing room, in terms of attitude, in terms of what you bring to the table," India's premier Test match bowler said. He is hopeful that things will change for the better next year.
"And I think we are well on our way to build something special. We do definitely need a few more players to give us a lending hand, but we are very hopeful of what we have in store for us."
Having spoken about team's shodding batting in Powerplay overs, Ashwin said that he stood vindicated as KL Rahul's 36-ball-71 was a testimony to what he had said after an earlier game.
Ashwin praised young guns of his team--Sam Curran, Nicholas Pooran, Harpreet Brar and Arshdeep Singh--and said they made "telling contributions this year, and that really adds to the strength of a franchise".
Losing few games at a trot does not help the team's cause in a cut-throat competition like in IPL tournament.
"We lost four on a trot before this game, that is not very healthy in a competition like IPL, where you need to string wins together. If you look at how the table is sitting right now, we could have given ourselves a good chance. You can look at a few games where we had chances to close games down."
"We will have to get more and more clinical victories to get to the top," he said.
Chennai Super Kings Stephen Fleming said that he is not bothered by one-off defeat like the six-wicket loss on the day at the hands of KXIP.
Asked what went wrong when 200 looked easily gettable, Fleming said:"It was a difficult day, on one hand you an eye on the equations you need.
We were not as good we could be in the last four overs, they bowled well and stopped momentum for 185-190.
"We were aware that we had 14.2 overs to defend. The first job for us today was to secure one or two spots, so we have done that. They played the game very well, their batting in the first 8-10 overs was great and was difficult on our nerves and anxieties, but we hung tough and we did enough towards the end to sneak through (maintain top position)," he said.
"Now, we look forward to going to Chennai, which is familiar, we regroup," he said.
"Our concentration would be recovering from day's cricket and a long flight tomorrow," he said.