Following his side’s loss against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) skipper Faf Du Plessis said that the wicket was two-paced in the first innings, causing players to struggle a bit with their batting. With a scintillating batting display, the Kolkata Knight Riders became the first team to win away from home in this IPL following their comprehensive seven-wicket win over Royal Challengers Bengaluru on Friday at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Speaking at the post-match presentation, Faf said, “In the first innings, we thought that the wicket was very two-paced, you could see that when the guys bowled the cutters, back of a length, the guys really struggled. We thought it was a decent score knowing that it gets a little bit easier in the evening, there was a little bit of dew that came in. Looking at the way we batted in the first inning, even if you have someone in there, Virat was struggling to hit the ball just because there was a lack of pace and the surface was two-paced.”
On whether the team could have done different things in powerplay with the ball, the skipper said, “You can always know after the game, we can say perhaps try one or two things but the way the two of them (Sunil Narine and Phil Salt) were striking the ball, some really good batting there, they put pressure on our bowlers. They hit strong cricket shots, and pretty much took the game away. With Narine there, you cannot go to spin, you want to use pace upfront. That is also a really good match-up for Salt and the way he plays. They were excellent, and really broke the game in the first six overs.”
Faf said that the team tried to have spin options with all-rounder Glenn Maxwell but there was not much spin during the game on the surface.
“We have tried the spinning options with Maxi, the finger spinners seem to be effective here, but at night there was not too much spin,” he said.
Talking about medium pacer Vijaykumar Vyshak, Faf said that he bowled well, but has not had many opportunities for RCB.
“We had a look in the first inning and we thought about bringing in Karn Sharma (the spinner). But we felt someone who could bowl really good slower balls was probably the most difficult bowler to face on this pitch. Dre Russ probably bowled 80 per cent of his balls as cutters. We took some lessons from that and he was the best bowler of the evening,” he concluded.
After KKR won the toss, they opted to field. After losing skipper Faf early, Virat Kohli had a 65-run partnership with Cameron Green (33 in 21 balls, with four boundaries and two sixes) and a 42-run stand with Glenn Maxwell (28 in 19 balls, with three fours and a six). Virat scored 83 not out in 59 balls, with four boundaries and four sixes and took RCB to 182/6 along with Dinesh Karthik (20* in eight balls, with three sixes) in their 20 overs.
Andre Russell (2/29) and Harshit Rana (2/39) were the pick of the bowlers for KKR.
In the run chase, Phil Salt (30 in 20 balls, with two fours and two sixes) and Sunil Narine (47 in 22 balls, with two fours and five sixes) put KKR to a fine start with a quickfire 86-run stand in 39 balls. After Vyshak and Mayank Dagar (1/23 each) dismissed the openers, Venkatesh Iyer (50* in 30 balls, with three fours and four sixes) and skipper Shreyas Iyer (39 in 24 balls, with two fours and two sixes) guided KKR to a seven-wicket win with 19 balls to go.
Sunil won ‘Player of the Match’ on his 500th match for his knock of 47 and one wicket.
RCB is sixth in the points table with a win and two losses. They have just two points. KKR is at second with two wins in two games and four points.
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