DUBAI: It's a wake up call, said Delhi Capitals skipper Shreyas Iyer as he urged his team's batsmen, with the exception of an in-form Shikhar Dhawan, to take "more responsibility" following a surprise loss to Kings XI Punjab in the ongoing IPL 2020 here.
Delhi Capitals lost by five wickets after putting 164/5 on the board.
Opener Dhawan continued to be in great form and his sequence of scores now read 69 not out, 57, 101 not out, and 106 not out, the last one coming in a losing cause.
"This is like a wake-up call for us. Going forward we are going to face tough situations and tougher teams. We have played amazing cricket in the past but we have to leave that in the past," Iyer said at the post-match virtual press conference.
"We have to come out all guns blazing, play with freedom and take more responsibility. We need one match to qualify and keeping that in mind, we will take one match at a time," he added.
Against KXIP, Dhawan alone scored 106 while the quintet comprising Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Marcus Stoinis, Rishabh Pant and Shimron Hetmyer contributed 54 runs collectively.
"I am really happy for Shikhar Dhawan for the way he is going. He is creating an amazing platform for us as batsmen. We should be knowing our roles pretty well," the DC skipper said.
However, he feels that his batsmen are in a good frame of mind and the defeat was a one-off setback.
"Other than that, I feel all the batsmen are in a really good frame of mind and few matches can go wrong here and there as fatigue creeps in. Keeping that aside we need to focus on our strengths," he said.
Iyer didn't blame the Dubai track as he felt that it played the same in both innings.