Last Update on: November 6th, 2020 at 11:21 pm
Royal Challengers Bangalore’s journey in IPL 2020 came to an end on Friday with a six-wicket defeat at the hands of SunRisers Hyderabad in the Eliminator. The defeat was fifth in a row for the Bangalore-based outfit.
Asked to bat first, RCB finished their innings on a modest 131 for 7. AB de Villiers top-scored with 56 while Aaron Finch played a crucial 32-run knock too. Barring them, no other batsmen could play any substantial knock. The likes of Virat Kohli (6), Devdutt Padikkal (1), Moeen Ali (0), Shivam Dube (8) all failed to deliver as RCB finished on a modest score.
For SRH, in-form Jason Holder starred with the ball, taking 3 for 25. The West Indies skipper dismissed Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal to give SRH a solid start. T Natarajan also made his mark, taking 2 wickets including that of AB de Villiers in the 18th over.
In reply, SRH chased down the total with two balls to spare with Kane Williamson and Jason Holder starring with the bat. SRH were reeling at 67 for 4 in the 12th over before Williamson and Holder joined hands. The two shared an unbeaten stand of 65 runs to take their team over the line. Williamson remained unbeaten on 50 while Holder scored 24.
Virat Kohli’s reaction:
Speaking at the end of the game, Virat Kohli admitted that his team didn’t have enough runs on the board and pointed it out as the reason behind the loss.
“If you talk about the first innings, I don’t think we had enough on the board already. The position we got ourselves in the second half, probably better execution…a game of margins. We just didn’t have enough runs on the board in my opinion,” said the skipper.
He further spoke about RCB’s poor batting in the last few games of IPL 2020. Virat Kohli insisted that nerves getting the better of the players might be one of the reasons behind the poor batting displays.
“Maybe nerves? We just allowed the bowlers to bowl where they wanted to and didn’t put them under pressure. We picked out the fielders a lot. It’s been a strange kind of phase, 4-5 games for us,” said Virat Kohli.
“It was a tough year. It tells you the strength of teams in the IPL. You don’t have home and away so when conditions are same for everyone, the real strengths come out and I think that’s probably why this has been the most competitive IPL.
“It was amazing to have the opportunity to come out and play. There’s a bigger picture going on here and we all have contributed to that. We’re privileged we got to be part of that and gave something to the fans,” he concluded.
Also Read: Unhappy Rohit Sharma Drops ‘India Cricketer’ Tag From Social Media Handles: Report
Also Read: We Are Capable Of Winning The T20I series: Zimbabwe Captain Chamu Chibhabha
