Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper, Virat Kohli urged his teammates to pull up their socks and look forward to better things in a dressing room speech after they suffered a huge loss by 9 wickets against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their first match of the UAE leg of Indian Premier League in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
RCB has lost their sixth straight match in the UAE as they were blown away for just 92 — their sixth-lowest total in the history of IPL. KKR managed to chase down the score with 10 overs to spare and jumped to the fifth spot on the IPL 2021 points table. Nothing went RCB’s way as they lost captain Kohli in the 2nd over for just 5. Star batsman AB de Villiers was dismissed for a golden duck by Andre Russell following which Varun Chakravarthy getting the prized wicket of Glenn Maxwell for just 10.
WATCH – KL Rahul Plucks One-handed Catch To Dismiss Sanju Samson
With their big 3 failing to score much, RCB was in deep trouble and they failed to get any momentum into their batting innings. Devdutt Padikkal top-scored with 22 but there was no real contribution from the rest of the batting unit. RCB are still placed 3rd on the points table having won 5 of their 8 matches, thanks to their fine run early in the year in India.
Skipper Virat Kohli insisted that bad days are bound to happen at such a level and it’s important to take it as motivation for the upcoming challenges.
Addressing the team in the dressing room, Virat Kohli said, “We are better off accepting it immediately and being at peace with it. Not meaning that we don’t look forward to the next one but it should give us more hunger to get on to the field again. And play the cricket that we have played so far in the tournament. It’s just about accepting that this kind of game will happen at some stage. There is no reason why we should react differently to losses.”
ALSO READ: Jake Dernbach To Represent Italy During T20 World Cup Qualifier
RCB is well-placed to reach the play-offs for the second successive year and Virat Kohli will hope the loss to KKR was only a blip in their otherwise fine campaign so far. They will now be locking horns with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in Sharjah.
