IPL 2018: If We Field Like That, We Don't Deserve To Win: Virat Kohli

The latest defeat on Sunday has pretty much put Royal Challengers Bangalore’s season in danger of coming to a premature end. The Virat Kohli-led side slumped to their fifth defeat in seven games this season so far. Kolkata Knight Riders thoroughly dominated the contest before winning it by six wickets.

Openers Brendon McCullum and Quinton de Kock gave Bangalore a solid start by adding 67 runs for the first wicket. However, after McCullum’s departure in tenth over, Virat Kohli had to wage a lone battle till the last ball of the innings. The skipper did extremely well, scoring his 33rd IPL fifty. He remained unbeaten, scoring 68 off 44 to ensure his side finish with a competitive total of 175/4.

However, the score did not turn out to be enough in the end. Chris Lynn starred for the visitors, scoring a gritty 52-ball 62 and remained unbeaten to help his team cross the line in the last over. He received good support from Sunil Narine (27), Robin Uthappa (36) and Dinesh Karthik (23).

Speaking after the loss, Kohli was critical of his side’s fielding effort. He also said that the score was par and in fact more than they had anticipated at one point in the game.

“It’s a pretty surprising every time we bat. Looked better than it played (the track). 175 was a really good score, we were thinking of 165 at one stage after those wickets, so 10 was a bonus,” Kohli said after the match.

Bangalore’s miseries were compounded by their horrible fielding. Lynn he was dropped by Murugan Ashwin on 7 which became the story for the rest of the innings.

“If we field like that, we don’t deserve to win. We need to be hard on ourselves and be more brave with the ball and in the field, we need to correct those things going forward,” Kohli said.

“All 11 of us need to come together and bring that excitement on the field. We don’t deserve to win if we field like that. We can’t afford to field like that and let singles go to boundaries. We were just not good enough tonight,” he added.

Bangalore are languishing at the seventh position in the table with just two wins from seven games. They will now need nothing less than a miracle to make it to the playoffs.

Kohli urged for his men to learn from their mistakes and step up if they were to stay in the tournament.

“I can’t pin-point anything at this point. We got to win 6 out of 7 to qualify from here. We need to be in that mindset to take every match as a virtual semi-final from here and there’s no room for complacency. Need guys stepping up their game at the right time. Hopefully, they understand that moving forward,” he concluded.