All Depends On The Mindset: RCB Skipper Virat Kohli After The Fifth Win of The Team
RCB skipper Virat Kohli expressed his joy at the way his teammates perfrmed and executed the plans. He also praised AB de Villiers for his sensational performance.
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) beat the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) by a huge margin of 82 runs on Monday. In the 28th match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) played in the small ground of Sharjah, Kohli led side defeated KKR by a huge margin of 82 runs, thanks to AB de Villiers ‘stormy innings of 73 runs.
RCB won the toss and decided to bat first. Devdutt Padikkal and Aaron Finch gave the team a great start and scored 67 runs in the eighth over itself. However, Padikkal was dismissed by Russell for 32 runs. At the same time, after 27 runs, Finch also missed a half-century by three runs and was out for 47 by the Prasidh Krishna. But after that captain, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers handled the innings and shared an unbroken 100-run partnership off 46 deliveries without losing any extra wickets and took the team’s score to 194 runs. During this partnership, most runs came off the de Villiers’ bat. He scored 73 runs in just 33 balls with the help of five fours and six sixes. At the same time, Virat remained unbeaten, scoring 33 runs off 28 balls.
At one time it seemed that RCB’s team would be able to score only 150 runs as they had 111 runs on the scoreboard for two wickets in 15 overs and de Villiers was playing for 8 off 9 balls and Virat was playing for 20 off 21 balls. But after that, de Villiers changed his gear and smashed 73 runs in the next five overs and gave KKR a mammoth target of 195 runs.
Kolkata, chasing the target of 195 runs, lost their first wicket in the fourth over as Tom Banton, playing his first match in IPL 2020, was bowled by Saini for 8 runs. After that, Shubman Gill handled the innings from one end but KKR’s wickets continued to fall from the other end. No Kolkata batsman could last much longer before Bangalore’s bowlers. The entire team managed to score 112 runs for 9 wickets in 20 overs. Shubman Gill scored 34 runs from KKR.
The Bangalore team, who were troubled by weak bowling at the start of the tournament, bowled tremendously. Chris Morris and Washington Sundar took two wickets each for the team. Apart from these, Saini, Siraj, Udana and Chahal got one wicket each.
Here is Virat Kohli’s Reaction After The Match
Speaking at the post-match conference, Kohli expressed his joy at the way his teammates performed and executed the plans. He also praised AB de Villiers for his sensational perfrmance.
“They’ve played good cricket in this IPL. Coming here, it was important to get the right start. Great to see individuals step up when the team requires. Bowling unit, with Morris coming in, looks all the more potent. Very happy. At the toss, the pitch didn’t have the usual Sharjah sheen. Knew the wicket was going to get slower and slower. Barring one super-human, everyone struggled on that pitch. The talk was around 165-170.
“Preparation was really good. Three-week camp helped us. Have clarity of plans. Know exactly what we want to do on the field. All depends on the mindset. It’s very positive. If your bowling unit is strong, you have a great chance of going deep in the tournament,” said Kohli.
“Was unbelievable. I thought I had a few balls under my belt so I’ll start striking. But he came in and hit his third ball nicely. On a pitch like that, only AB can do that. It was a special knock. We got 195 purely because of the genius of that man. Always things you can reflect on and say you can improve on these things. All about taking this momentum forward. Don’t want to be complacent,” he said.
