On Wednesday, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, led by Virat Kohli, suffered a defeat of 21 runs against the Kolkata Knight Riders at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in their home city. The pitch was flat and the Kolkata Knight Riders scored a massive total of 200/5 after battering RCB bowlers.
However, the RCB team failed to chase the target as most of the batters, except Kohli, couldn’t make a significant impact. Although Kohli was involved in two partnerships, the rest of the team lacked the determination to put up a fight.
Furthermore, RCB’s poor fielding added to their woes as they dropped some easy catches. Kohli, who was captaining in place of the regular skipper, expressed his frustration at the meek loss.
After the game, Kohli expressed his anger and admitted that they gave away the game to their opponents. He felt that their team didn’t display a professional attitude and their fielding was below par. Although they bowled well, their poor fielding let them down. Kohli believed that the game was a “freebie” handed over to their opponents, and they deserved to lose.
“To be honest we handed over the game to them. We deserved to lose. We weren’t professional enough. We bowled well but fielding was not up to standard. This was a freebie handed over to them,” said Virat Kohli.
“In the field, there was a period of 4-5 overs where we dropped chances, that cost us 25-30 runs,” he added about the team’s fielding woes.
In the IPL match on Wednesday, Kolkata Knight Riders broke their four-match losing streak by beating Royal Challengers Bangalore by 21 runs. After RCB captain Virat Kohli chose to bowl first in their home den, English opener Jason Roy played an outstanding innings of 56 runs off 29 balls.
Kolkata Knight Riders’ batters worked together to put up a competitive total of 200/5, with spin bowlers performing exceptionally well. It was the spin magic that did the trick for Kolkata Knight Riders after Roy’s sterling fifty.
However, the spin duo of Varun Chakravarthy (3/24) and rookie Suyash Sharma (2/30) wreaked havoc on RCB’s top-order batsmen. Andre Russell (2/29) then broke Virat Kohli’s resistance and limited RCB to 179 for eight, preventing them from achieving the target of 201 runs.
In the absence of regular skipper Faf Du Plessis, Kohli led the team and played a vital innings of 54 runs off 34 balls. Kohli’s knock kept RCB’s hopes alive in the run chase, especially after the dismissals of du Plessis (17) and Glenn Maxwell (5) for low scores.
The match turned upside down when Venkatesh Iyer took a stunning catch at deep midwicket boundary to dismiss Kohli off the bowling of Andre Russell. Iyer dived towards his left, rolled over, and held the ball firmly, leaving Kohli in disbelief as he walked back to the pavilion. This game-changing catch by Iyer proved to be a pivotal moment in the match.
