Royal Challengers Bangalore stand-in skipper Virat Kohli admitted that his side ‘deserved to lose’ as they weren’t clinical enough on the field against Kolkata Knight Riders who were in the midst of a four-match losing streak. Nitish Rana’s side did the double over RCB, won their second game over the Bengaluru-based franchise in IPL 2023 and it was their fifth consecutive win over RCB in the IPL.
Kohli smashed a fifty, his fifth this season but the stand-in skipper didn’t get the desired support from the rest of the batting lineup as they succumbed under the pressure in the tall chase.
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The 34-year-old was brutally honest after his side’s abysmal performance and admitted that after dropping some crucial catches in the outfield and allowing KKR to score 200/5 in 20 overs, they were deservedly on the losing side.
“To be honest we handed them the game. We did deserve to lose. We handed them a victory. We were certainly not up to standard. If you look at the game, we didn’t capitalize our chances. We dropped a few chances which cost us 25-30 runs," said Virat while speaking in the post-match presentation ceremony.
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Kohli did strike a crucial partnership with Mahipal Lomror but once the latter departed after adding 34 runs to the cause, the lack of partnerships came back to haunt RCB.
Virat said that they were one partnership away from winning the game and he was particularly unhappy with how some of the soft dismissal from his batters.
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“We set up ourselves really well. We ended up hitting the fielder to balls which weren’t wicket-taking. It is what’s on the scoreboard and how to get them. Even while chasing, despite losing wickets we were one partnership away from being in the game. We needed one partnership to get us home. We need to be switched on and not give away soft plays," he added.
RCB played their penultimate match at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium this season, they are set to play the next five matches on the road before returning to Bengaluru for one final time this season on May 21.
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Kohli insisted that it’s important to win on the road and his side were looking forward to the challenge.
“We have won one and lost one on the road. It is not something that is making us nervous. We need to win some away games to be in good shape for the later stages of the tournament," he concluded.
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