Under the captaincy of Virat Kohli, Royal Challengers Bangalore has faced defeat after two consecutive wins this season. This team has won four matches in eight, while it got defeated in four. RCB remains in the playoff race with eight points. In the match against Kolkata, Virat's team had to face defeat by 21 runs. This is RCB's first defeat under his captaincy this season. In all three defeats earlier, the command of the team was in the hands of Faf Duplessis.
Virat Kohli blamed poor fielding for RCB's defeat in the match against Kolkata. He angrily said after the match "To be honest, we handed the match to them. We deserved to lose. We didn't play professional cricket the right way. We bowled well but the fielding was terrible. We let them win the match for free". "
Kohli further said, "In the field, there were 4-5 overs where we missed chances, which cost them 25-30 extra runs. While batting, we started very well, but four to five batsmen were dismissed in easy ways." Got out. Those balls were not going to take wickets, but our shots went straight to the fielders. After losing wickets while chasing, a partnership could have brought us back into the match. We simply could not get that partnership. Need to stay fresh, and avoid diluting our approach to the game."
Virat said "We are winning one match and losing the next. It is not something that is bothering us, but we need to win a few matches to be in a good position going into the final stages of the tournament."
What happened in the match?
Batting first, Kolkata Knight Riders scored a mammoth score of 200 runs for five wickets. Jesse Roy hit a stormy half-century. At the same time, captain Nitish Rana played an inning of 48 runs in 21 balls. Venkatesh Iyer was given two lives from RCB and he also scored 31 runs. Chasing the target, the Bangalore team was never in rhythm. Virat Kohli raised hopes by building two good partnerships, but Venkatesh Iyer ended RCB's hopes by catching his brilliant catch. Kohli scored 54 runs.
For Kolkata, the spin duo of Varun Chakraborty and Suyash Sharma took five wickets together. Russell also took two wickets to restrict RCB to 179/8 and hand Kolkata a 21-run win. With this, the Kolkata team also broke the streak of four consecutive defeats.
