Abu Dhabi, Oct 24 (IANS): Captain Shreyas Iyer said on Saturday that Delhi Capitals (DC) batsmen should have played with more freedom instead of looking to survive whenever they came into the middle against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).

DC were taken apart by KKR and they fell to a 59-run defeat at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium.

"I feel it's really important that you get off to an amazing start when you are chasing a total in excess of 190, need 50 runs at least in the first six overs. Losing two wickets put a lot of pressure on the batsmen coming behind but you can't give that as a reason. We need to be strong in our mind and play with freedom, not have a survival mindset," said Shreyas after the match.

KKR were propelled to 194/6 batting first despite a rocky start due to a 115-run partnership for the fourth wicket between Sunil Narine and Nitish Rana after which Varun Chakravarthy took five wickets to restrict DC to 135/9.

"Looking at the start we got, we could've put more pressure on them and we could've gone more attacking but the way they played in between especially Sunil Narine coming and changing the momentum towards them. I think that was the changing point and also we could've bowled in perfect areas, we couldn't execute our plans but yeah, we need to come back stronger and will take the blow on our chin," said Shreyas.