We'd rather have this loss now than in an eliminator - Salt

Phil Salt scored a breezy 32-ball 62 against Sunrisers Hyderabad © BCCI/IPL
For the second day in a row, IPL 2025 saw a team that has booked its playoff berth miss an opportunity to solidify its spot in the top-two. Gujarat Titans were guilty of slipping up against the Lucknow Super Giants on Thursday (May 22), and a day later, it was the turn of Royal Challengers Bengaluru, who slipped to a 42-run defeat against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Apart from the familiar pattern of a playoffs-bound side losing to an eliminated team, the other pattern in both games was an extremely high-scoring encounter, with the team batting first posting a 230-plus total.

Like GT, even RCB had a strong, if not a better, position in the run chase before things went haywire at the death. Phil Salt, playing a game after nearly a month, looked anything but rusty in his 32-ball 62 that had set up the chase perfectly for his side. After Virat Kohli's initial flurry, it was Salt's blitz that kept RCB firmly in the box seat, but once the Englishman fell, the innings didn't have the same tempo despite a cameo from Jitesh Sharma. Reflecting on the loss, Salt didn't seem too flustered by the nature of it and didn't feel like it would hurt the team morale.

"I mean that's one way of looking at it. The other way of looking at it is, you don't mind having this game not in the playoffs," said Salt at the post-match press conference.

"You can take it as a disappointment or you can take it for what it is. We've qualified but we've lost the game. No one likes to lose games of cricket. I'm hating the fact that we lost, as will everybody else in an RCB shirt, but we'd rather have this now than in an eliminator."

As much as a defeat is a hurdle at this stage of the tournament, Salt's words weren't just restricted to philosophy. After all, for most parts of such a big chase, RCB looked well and truly in control on what was a good batting surface in Lucknow.

"We did a lot of good things (while) chasing it down. Obviously, we got it to a point at 15 overs where every single person in our dressing room would believe that we're going to win that game. Obviously, the margins are most of the time fine, but the margins for failure were very fine tonight. You hit an over of 20 at that time and you go a long way in icing the game. Cricket can be like that sometimes. We'll have a look at what we did well and what we can do better."

Till this season, the IPL has generally seen at least one team with 16 points making it to the playoffs, with 18 points usually assuring a top-two finish. However, this year, all those dynamics have changed with the top-four all generating a high number of points. So much so that we could see all the playoff sides finishing with more than 18 points. The defeat to SRH means that RCB can now get to a maximum of 19 points. It wouldn't assure them a top-two finish as other results would have to go their way.

Apart from 2016, the IPL has never seen a team outside the top-two winning the title since the playoffs system was introduced in 2011. Having a second shot at making the title is a priceless commodity to have at this stage of the tournament, but Salt feels that RCB are mentally prepared for any challenge that is bound to come their way

"I can't sit here and tell you that we prefer to finish first, second, third or fourth. We've qualified for the playoffs, and once you're in the playoffs, you've got to go and play in a carefree manner and do what you can to win the trophy. We're not too far ahead of ourselves at the moment with that thinking. In a few days, we'll be playing here again against Lucknow in a game that we want to win and show everyone how good we are. It's pretty simple, pretty straightforward, we're just looking at the next game."

It's been a testing month for Salt, who was first ruled out of the CSK game on May 3 due to fever and then saw the IPL get suspended due to an unprecedented situation in the country. Once the season resumed, RCB had their game against KKR abandoned due to heavy rain. So, when he took the field on May 23, it is fair to say that there was a lot of nervous energy in Salt, even if his batting had anything but that on display. Looking back over the last month, the 28-year-old got into a philosophical mood.

"It's a funny one. When you're ill, you sit on the bed and wonder if you're ever going to feel better again. You think of all those things you took for granted when you were healthy and all that sort of stuff. As a group, we hadn't played cricket for three weeks, and I don't think I played in a month, which is a long time. More than anything else, I'm just glad that I'm healthy and playing another game of cricket."