JOIN USWhile their bowling and batting haven’t been anything special, fielding has been particularly ordinary. The butter-fingered RCB fielders let go two Chennai Super Kings’ Michael Hussey twice, including the one when he was in single digit, during his knock of 83 n.o.
“Obviously it’s not ideal,” noted AB de Villiers, who has been the highest scorer for RCB with 157 runs, when asked about team’s morale after three successive defeats. “I don’t think we played as well as we could but we have definitely addressed the issues, starting with fielding. I think that’s where you set your trend. But then, that’s the nature of Twenty20 cricket. You lose momentum very quickly, but you also gain it very quickly. So we are looking forward to gaining that,” he explained ahead of team’s practice.
While virtually ruling out the injured paceman Dirk Nannes out of the IPL IV, the South African also dismissed suggestions that gelling together has been a problem for a largely new-look side. “I think every team has them,” he pointed out, talking about new set of players. “Gelling together hasn’t been a difficult part at all. I really can’t pin-point anything that we are doing wrong except for bad fielding, bad batting and bowling.
That’s what we have to set right. I think we just have to go out there and play some good cricket. There haven’t been any issues at all between the guys, we all love playing together and we really do. You can see it on the field,” he elaborated.
Batting, de Villiers admitted, hasn’t been up to the mark. “Batting isn’t the only issue but we haven’t strung together good partnerships except for one or two. I thought especially in the first six overs we haven’t been batting well and we need to look at that. We have discussed that in our team meetings. Now it’s just a matter of putting our hand up and playing good cricket,” he remarked.
Fielding has had a direct effect on bowling, said de Villiers. “Our fielding hasn’t helped at all. We have let down a few catches and a few run-out opportunities have been missed.
We all know that the game is all about taking wickets so that the batting team loses momentum. We dropped Michael Hussey twice and he scored 80. If you take that away, it’s a different ball game. It comes back to fielding once again and we have been working on it.”