Both Virat Kohli, the Royal Challengers Bangalore captain, and Brendon McCullum rued their team’s clumsy on-field bloopers after the six-wicket loss to Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday (April 29).
It started with the fourth delivery of the fourth over, when M Ashwin, playing his first game of the season, dropped a sitter to give Chris Lynn, the player of the match, a let-off when the batsman was just on seven. The opener eventually anchored Kolkata’s chase with a sedate 62 not out off 52, as the visiting team chased down the target of 176 in 19.1 overs. Apart from missing out on an opportunity to dismiss Lynn early, poor ground fielding too cost Bangalore quite a few runs. The home team also let slip a chance of running Dinesh Karthik out in the backend of the innings.
Kohli, who top-scored for Bangalore with an unbeaten 68, expressed his disappointment in the post-match presentation ceremony. “If we field like that, we don’t deserve to win,” he bemoaned. “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. We didn’t deserve to win with the way we fielded. We just weren’t good enough tonight.”
Echoing Kohli’s chagrin, McCullum, who looked in fine touch on his return and made 38 off 28, said: “We dropped catches, and we weren’t at our best on the field. We were good with the bat, we were good with the ball, but our fielding was disappointing. You can’t be like that in this competition.”
Even before the action commenced at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore were dealt with a major blow when AB de Villiers was ruled out of the match due to illness. “Definitely, we did miss AB de Villiers,” said McCullum in the post-match press conference.
“He is probably the best player in the world and one of the best we have seen in the history of the game. For him to be absent today was a huge blow for us. We wish him well for his recovery. We hope he feels a lot better tomorrow. He is a tough customer as well so he was pretty ill to be not able to take the field. I know he was desperate to get out there. Hopefully, he will be back for the next game as he is such a key player for us.”
With de Villiers sitting out, the pressure doubled on Kohli , and he stepped up when his team needed him the most. The 29-year-old hit five fours and three sixes in his 44-ball stay, and led his side to a par score on a pitch which was taking a significant turn. Bangalore smacked 66 runs in the final six overs to finish on 175 for 4 in 20 overs, which according to McCullum was a good score.
“I thought 175 was a pretty good score,” held McCullum. “We saw how much turn was there and there was a little bit of variable bounce as well. The way we bowled in the first six overs, the scoreboard probably didn’t quite reflect how well we executed our plans. It can happen sometimes. If we would have got early wickets on the back of efforts we put in, the result would have been quite different. They played really well too. The way they swept our spinners on a tough wicket was smart batting.
“Our batting have been exceptional so far. We have got scores in excess of 200 and our minimum score has been close to 170-odd. We have been nothing but a very good batting unit.”
Meanwhile, talking about the dangerous opening duo of Lynn and Sunil Narine, McCullum said it was frustrating that the edges the Bangalore bowlers induced were falling in no man’s land. Both Lynn and Narine have enjoyed batting against Bangalore in the past. In 2017, the two put on a 105-run stand in just 6.1 overs with both of them scoring fifties. Even this year, it was Narine’s sizzling 19-ball 50 that contributed to Bangalore’s downfall in their opening encounter of the 11th edition.
“It’s quite frustrating, definitely,” rued McCullum. “Those guys have played really well against us in the past and we put in a lot of effort today. I thought we did really well. It’s frustrating when you create those chances and they don’t go to hand. The least we can do is to execute those plans and hope things work out well.”
Despite rain stopping the play for just over 30 minutes, the former New Zealand captain refused to blame the weather. “The ball might have skidded on a little bit (after play resumed), but we also saw a lot of turn after the rain so it didn’t really make a whole lot of difference to the outcome of the game,” he pointed out. “We just didn’t get enough wickets early and didn’t take those opportunities. It was a pretty good game of cricket… we have been involved in quite a few good games but sooner or later we will have to convert them to points.”
With just four points under their belt in seven matches, Bangalore are languishing at seventh in the points table. Having played five of those games on their home ground, Bangalore will next play Mumbai Indians on Tuesday before going on the road.
But while the path has got tougher, McCullum said the team was far from giving up hope. “It’s tough when you’re losing a few games, and not getting the results you want, but you just have to be strong in your own group’s mind on what you’re trying to achieve,” he said. “Some people may doubt you, none of that matters, you just have to believe amongst your group that you have the ability to be standing there at the end of the competition with a trophy in your hand.
“We’re going to go on the road soon, and it’ll be nice to get a win before we get on the road. We’re going to have to do it tough, and that’s our fault because we didn’t get the results earlier.”