Virat Kohli, the star batter of Star India and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, has now expressed that the first hurdle of M Chinnaswamy Stadium is winning the toss. Rajat has lost six of the nine tosses this season, including their home games. Most recently, after losing the toss, they batted first in their last three matches but couldn’t post a strong score in all three and lost.
On Thursday, however, it changed. Kohli teamed up with his colleague Devdutt Padikkal to do something phenomenal, allowing RCB to score more than 200 runs. That then turned out to be the match-winning performance against the Rajasthan Royals, whose innings ended at 194 runs, courtesy of a superbly bowled Josh Hazlewood in the last few overs.
He chuckled and said, “The first thing is that you have to win the toss.” He pointed out that dew at night could change the whole nature of the game. Setting a target was a problem for them, and they were worrying about that.
The simple plan for batting was that someone would be able to bat through the innings with other players being aggressive around them; Kohli and Padikkal, who knew this ground well, shared strategies such that Kohli would allow newcomer Salt to lead things up the top order.
Kohli lauded the batting lineup after their stern 11-run win over Rajasthan. He said that they did not have a bad shot in the air but that they tried to time the ball and place it for runs to create a reasonably good total. Kohli himself got involved with an elegant contribution of 70 runs from just 42 balls and built up a vital partnership with Padikkal, scoring 95 runs together for the second wicket. RCB managed to achieve a total of 205.
Rajasthan started well, getting to 110 for 2, but RCB subsequently tightened their grip to finish with 194 for 9. Hazlewood’s impressive figures of 4 for 33 played a big part in this turnaround.
While Kohli admitted that the team disheartened their previous home games, taking time off to talk about disillusionments and make adjustments as a batting unit proved mindful to this match. This, he reminded, is still better than scoring big without the pitch being such an easy one to bat on. Though dew helped in the second half, much credit can be given to the good play by Rajasthan.
The next opponent for RCB is the Delhi Capitals on Sunday, April 27, and this is going to attract a lot of attention as the match should be staged on the opposition’s home ground.
