'One who plays badly stays behind': Virender Sehwag singles out Josh Inglis, Nehal Wadhera while discussing Punjab Kings' defeat

Legendary Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag did not mince his words as he singled out Josh Inglis and Nehal Wadhera for Punjab Kings’ (PBKS) narrow defeat in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 final on Tuesday. The IPL 2025 points table leader, PBKS, agonisingly fell short by just six runs in the 191-run chase against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad as their top-order failed to fire at the biggest stage.

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On a slightly slowish track, RCB did well to post 190 despite most of their batters failing to convert the starts into a fifty. Virat Kohli was the top run-getter with 43 while Mayank Agarawal, Rajat Patidar, Liam Livingstone and Jitesh Sharma scored in the 20s.

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PBKS faced the same issue as openers Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh scored 24 and 26 respectively, while Inglis made 39 and Wadhera struggled big time with a knock of 15 off 18 balls. Shreyas Iyer got out for 1.

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While the Punjab openers did not stay in the middle for long, they set the foundation, but Inglis and the middle-order failed to capitalise. The 30-year-old Australian Inglis scored an attacking 39 off 23 but paid the price for playing one too many shots, while uncapped Indian batter Wadhera struggled to get going in the middle, which took away the momentum from PBKS.

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Shashank Singh hit 61 not out off 30 balls from the No.6 slot, but the acceleration came very late as RCB won their maiden IPL title.

Sehwag slams Inglis, underlines Wadhera’s struggles under IPL final pressure

Sehwag pointed out that someone from the top three needed to score a match-winning knock for PBSK to win the IPL final and he felt Inglis was the batter who should have done that. He also highlighted how the pressure of a final match made Wadhera completely ineffective in the chase.

“Every RCB batter got starts, but no one played a big innings. The same happened with PBKS,” Sehwag told Cricbuzz. “If Inglis had scored 60-70, then the job was done. If what Shashank did at the end had been done earlier by Inglis, then there would have been no slowdown. He would not have been out and somebody from the other end would have also played, runs would have come, the pressure would not have come.

“The pressure comes when you lose wickets. Your hands start shaking, thinking if I get out. That’s why you are not able to connect. That’s why Nehal Wadera made 15 off 18 balls. If only he had made 26 off 18 balls, PBKS could have won. This is the pressure of the final, the pressure created by the fall of wickets. The one who plays well in such pressure blossoms and the one who plays badly stays behind. Maybe it was his first final, he doesn’t have experience, first time such a situation came. It’s different to bat in this situation in a normal match than in the final. I think that was what they lacked.”

Sehwag also felt that a few runs from the openers could have also completed the job for PBKS. “If they had at least one batter from the top three (playing good). The start wasn’t poor, they scored 52 in powerplay, which was eight less than 60. If only they had got those eight runs at the start, then they would not have been required to chase that eight runs at the end.”