JOIN USA reticent Daniel Vettori and an expressive Virat Kohli are as different as chalk is from cheese but the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s coach and skipper duo has managed to strike a wonderful working relationship.
While Sunday’s IPL final was third such occasion for Kohli, it was the second summit clash for Vettori – his first one came as player/captain of RCB in 2011. While Kohli now has a dubious distinction of losing three finals as a player, Vettori too became the first to lose final both as captain and coach. Obviously, the Kiwi was disappointed after RCB’s defeat. Excerpts from his post-final press conference.
On the mood in the camp:
Obviously the mood is a bit down at the moment. At some point we will reflect on the tournament and obviously be proud of a lot of things we did -- to come from near bottom to qualifying for the final. I suppose the reflection around the performances is difficult to worry about at the moment because there is nothing actually to play for now.
On Kohli as captain and as Orange Cap holder:
He has been phenomenal. Probably the main reason we are in the final is because of his performance. Not only with the bat but also his leadership, I think when you have got a guy at the top of the order who takes that much control and his performances are that great, it allows things to flow from there. Obviously a great captain does that, he leads with his performance and Virat has been exceptional not only with batting, but with fielding and leadership.
On being confident about chasing 208 and Ben Cuttings innings upsetting plans: We have proved through the tournament that we can score such sort of runs here at the Chinnaswamy. It’s a ground that's good for chasing. Probably a little bit of dew came on. And the start we got off today (Sunday) allowed us the confidence to do that (chase). But we recognised that one of the main reasons Sunrisers are in the final is because how well they have bowled, especially at the back end. And Ben Cutting with his batting was probably decisive. If you look at the overall scheme of things, he took some crucial wickets too that put us on the backfoot.
On what went wrong from 140/2:
I think in an IPL game there are some critical moments and in any IPL team there are some very good players. I think just when we required a couple of guys to kick on, we weren't able to give that momentum that Chris and Virat had established for us. So I think Sunrisers grabbed their opportunities and got wickets at crucial times. But we obviously believed that we could go all the way but we weren't able to finish it off. It was such a high-scoring game to be so close. It shows the quality of both sides.
DH News Service