“I have to stand in front and take the brunt”: Virat Kohli reacts on shambolic loss vs KXIP

Virat Kohli reacts on shambolic loss: The captain of Royal Challengers took responsibility for his team’s first loss in IPL 2020.

During the sixth match of the ongoing 13th season of the Indian Premier League between Kings XI Punjab and Royal Challengers Bangalore in Dubai, Kings XI Punjab beat Royal Challengers Bangalore by 97 runs to climb to the top of the points table.

While there are still early days in the tournament, Punjab registering a thumping victory first up must have given a lot of confidence especially after them losing their first match in a super over.

Speaking during the post-match presentation, Royal Challengers captain Virat Kohli took responsibility for the shambolic loss. Kohli, who had earlier won the toss and chose to field, dropped his counterpart in Lokesh Rahul twice which cost RCB 49 runs in the last two overs as the latter registered his career-best IPL score.

In addition to Bangalore’s bowlers being clueless against Rahul in the death overs, Kohli’s dual errors witnessed Kings XI to score 206/3 in 20 overs. With the bat in hand, Kohli departed after scoring 1 (5) as he mis-timed a pull off Punjab’s Sheldon Cottrell.

Virat Kohli reacts on shambolic loss vs KXIP

“I think we were good in the middle phase with the ball, they got off to a decent start and we pulled things back nicely,” Kohli was quoted as saying during the presentation ceremony.

“I have to stand in front and take the brunt of it, not the best day in the office, couple of important chances of KL [Rahul] when he was set and that cost us 35-40 runs at a later stage maybe if we restricted them to 180 we wouldn’t have under pressure from ball one to chase,” Kohli said.

IPL 2020 has put forward a novel challenge for uncapped Australia wicket-keeper batsman Joshua Philippe. Used to open the batting for Western Australia and Sydney Sixers, Philippe has been asked to bat at No. 6 and No. 3 in his first two IPL 2020 matches respectively.

Being asked about managing the 23-year old player’s batting position, Kohli talked about how promoting Philippe could have given them depth in the middle-order. While Kohli’s ploy was backed by logic, RCB getting bundled out for 109 in 17 overs spoke of the otherwise.

“He [Joshua Philippe] has batted at the top of the order for Western Australia and done well in the BBL as well. Early days in the tournament so we thought we will maximise his ability and see how we go from thereon. We thought we will give ourselves a bit of depth in the middle overs,” Kohli added.