It was a frustrating night in the middle for Virat Kohli, who once again emerged as the lone warrior for his franchise in a chase that required just one partnership to take the Bangalore franchise through.
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SRH do have the best bowling unit in the competition but with a solid start and with Kohli and ABD at 3 and 4, you would have expected RCB to chase that meagre total down.
However, poor shot selection and lack of application from the RCB batsmen meant that they just couldn’t muster a good enough partnership in order to get over the line
Critics have tried to find chinks in the SRH bowling armour, but there ain’t any. Fielders can try and drop catches, umpires can give dubious decision, but this breed of SRH bowlers manage to find a way anyway.
Kohli gave some much needed impetus to the chase at the top of the order, but after he was dismissed, it looked like RCB were a little lost for ‘actions’.
CDG and Mandeep did string a partnership together at the end but SRH’s death overs specialists, Kaul and Bhuvi ensured that the duo couldn’t take RCB over the line.
Virat Kohli was once again distraught to be standing there doing the losing captain’s interview. He was frustrated with how his side didn’t compete well enough to come out on top and in a way gave the win away to SRH.
“It was a (tough defeat) but that is how the game goes. We deserve to lose this game. We were not good enough on the day. 60-odd runs in the first six overs and than we ended up like that. I don’t think we showed enough application. The kind of shots we played, they were not on at that stage. I think we threw it away. I think we let the opposition get back in the game. That has been the story of the season so far. The fielding was up to the mark but I think 10-15 runs less would have been ideal for us. This was a tough wicket (to bat). We should have done a better job with the ball but in the field we were up to the mark. If you have strong characters in the team you can always do well in such a tournament.” Kohli said.
