Royal Challengers Bangalore suffered an embarrassing loss at their home ground, Chinnaswamy Stadium in the match against Kolkata Knight Riders. KKR registered their second win against RCB in IPL on Wednesday as they beat the latter by 21 runs. RCB's stand-in skipper Virat Kohli expressed disappointment with the result and blamed their soft dismissals and sloppy fielding for losing the game.
Nitish Rana smashed 48 runs off 21 balls after being dropped twice as KKR ended up scoring 200/5. Coming to chase, RCB managed to score just 179/8 with only Mahipal Lomror 34 (18) and Virat Kohli 54 (37) registering more than 30 runs.
"To be honest we handed over the game to them. We deserved to lose," Kohli said at the post-match presentation.
"We weren't professional enough. We bowled well but fielding was not up to standard. This was a freebie handed over to them.
"In the field, we dropped two chances, that cost us 25-30 runs. When batting, we set us ourselves up very well, but then (suffered) four-five soft dismissals."
RCB lost early wickets as Faf du Plessis (17), Shahbaz Ahmed (2), and Glenn Maxwell (5) were dismissed in the powerplay.
"Not wicket-taking balls, but we hit straight to the fielders. Even while chasing, after losing wickets, one partnership brought us back into the game. We were one partnership short. We need to stay switched on, and not give away soft plays," Kohli said.
The player-of-the-match Varun Chakravarthy who finished with impressive figures - 3/27, dedicated the award to his newborn son.
"I'd like to credit this to my newborn son, still not able to see him, I'd like to dedicate it to him and my wife."
"I was more focused on accuracy rather than more variations. I didn't want to add more variations. I have been working a lot and I'd like to credit AC Pratheepan -- he's been working for me and even Abhishek Nayar. I'd like to thank them.
"I like that challenge (to bowl the difficult overs) and Nitish is giving the ball whenever he wants me to do the job, I am liking it."
