Virat Kohli came down heavily on his teammates after Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) suffered a 21-run defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 on Wednesday evening.
Batting first, KKR put up a formidable total of 200/5 on the board in their 20 overs, courtesy of some brilliant batting from Jason Roy (56 off 29 balls) and Nitish Rana (48 off 21). RCB fielders dropped the KKR skipper on 5 & 18 and the left-handed batsmen made the most of the lifelines to steer his team to the double hundred mark.
In response, RCB had a brisk start but KKR's spinners once again did the trick for them by picking up wickets at regular intervals. Faf du Plessis failed to convert his start into a big score as Suyash Sharma got his wicket with a tossed-up googly.
Soon Varun Chakravarthy joined the party and sent back Glenn Maxwell cheaply to the dugout. Sharma & Chakravarthy ended up with five wickets combined but it was Andre Russel who dealt the death blow to RCB hopes by removing Kohli (54 off 37) who looked in ominous touch.
MORE: Make your IPL 2023 predictions and win prizes with Dafabet in Premier League Million
What did Virat Kohli say after losing to Kolkata Knight Riders?
Kohli was a frustrated figure after the match and was irked with his fielders for their sloppy mistakes which allowed Rana to keep going.
"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. 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. 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 stated.
We know what we can achieve as a team 👊
— Royal Challengers Bangalore (@RCBTweets) April 26, 2023
Looking ahead to the away leg 🛣️#PlayBold #ನಮ್ಮRCB #IPL2023 #RCBvKKR pic.twitter.com/gjFoGDqdWS
What next for Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore?
The win takes KKR to the seventh spot in the league table with six points from eight matches and will be in action next against Gujarat Titans on Saturday.
MORE: How to watch IPL 2023 season online and on TV | Full list of players, teams for IPL 2023
Whereas, RCB stay in the fifth spot with eight points from an equal number of matches. They will hope to bounce back to winning ways when they take on Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Monday at the Ekana Sports City.
