Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) Director of Cricket and head coach Mike Hesson has said that Virat Kohli’s announcement to step down as captain after this season didn’t affect their performance against KKR in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Kohli had made it clear that he will continue to play for the Royal Challengers Bangalore but he won’t lead the team after the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 season.
And, after the humiliating 9-wicket defeat against KKR, Hesson stated that RCB didn’t do well with the bat but he was confident that his team would bounce back very quickly. Notably, RCB could manage only 92 runs in 19 overs. For KKR, the openers – Shubman Gill and debutant Venkatesh Iyer played some brilliant shots and made chased down the total with as many as 10 overs in hand.
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“I think it was actually to get any form of distraction out early. We talked about making that announcement as soon as possible really, all the players were aware of it. It has not impacted performance against KKR, we were not sharp with the bat, we lost wickets. But I am confident that this group will turn around pretty quickly,” Mike Hesson said during a virtual post-match press conference.
“The team combination was not the problem today. To be fair, we probably got the toss wrong. It was not a 93-run wicket, we should have been able to get to 150. Whether that would have been enough or not, it is debatable because the ball started to slide down, but we were not sharp enough with the bat,” Hesson further added.
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“AB de Villiers did not have the gloves, we have to look after him. He is an important player for us, he is not one we can risk behind the stumps so that was unfortunate for Rajat as we needed a keeper-bat to do the role for us at number three. To be fair, KS Bharat has been outstanding in the camp and he deserves his inclusion,” he shared.
“We were pretty clear in terms of Virat batting at the top, it is a lot harder to start against spin. We are very happy with Devdutt Padikkal and Virat opening the batting for us, high-quality players, left-right combination and KS Bharat can bat anywhere. We were forced for that change with AB de Villiers not keeping,” Mike Hesson signed off.
