Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli has been fined for maintaining a slow rate against Kings XI Punjab in the sixth match of IPL 2020 on Thursday (September 24) in Dubai.
Barring the toss, nothing went right for Virat Kohli during the match as RCB suffered a crushing 97-run defeat. In the first half of the game, he dropped KL Rahul twice and the latter went on to punish RCB by slamming an unbeaten 132 off just 69 balls.
After being given two reprieves by his former IPL teammate, Rahul slammed 42 off just 9 balls to power KXIP to a mammoth 206 for 3 in the allotted 20 overs. His whirlwind knock was studded with 14 fours and 7 sixes.
Virat Kohli then failed with the bat too. The RCB captain managed to score just 1 off 4 balls before being dismissed by pacer Sheldon Cottrell. The other batsmen failed to get going too as RCB were all out for 109 in the 17th over. Washington Sundar was the top-scorer for the Bangalore-based outfit with 30 runs to his name.
And as if those setbacks were not enough, his miseries were further compounded by the fine slapped on him. Opting to field first, the RCB skipper operated with three fast bowlers in Dale Steyn, Umesh Yadav and Navdeep Saini as the first innings lasted an hour and 51 minutes.
This was RCB’s first offence of the season under the IPL’s Code of Conduct relating to minimum over-rate offences. Virat Kohli was fined INR 12 lakh as a result. Virat Kohli was be desperate to move on as quickly as possible from the heavy defeat as he eyes his first-ever IPL trophy.