JOIN US“Yes, it is really tough from now on,” the World Cup’s player of the tournament conceded on Friday night, downcast and distraught after going down by 26 runs to Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Chinnaswamy stadium. “We have to win six out of six to have a chance. We will give it our best shot.”
The Warriors were never in the hunt after allowing the Challengers to amass 181 for five, the fact that Yuvraj stuck the opponents in making that total was even more difficult to digest for the left-hander. As if seeking to apportion blame, he went on, “I wish I had lost the toss. I have won the toss five times, and we have lost all those matches. I don’t know what to say.”
Ruing the lack of a good start, Yuvraj noted, “It was a chaseable target because it was a good batting wicket. In the first six overs, we didn’t lose many wickets but the Manish (Pandey)-Jesse (Ryder) partnership didn’t yield many runs. If the runs had come at that time, me and Robin (Uthappa) could have finished off things. There definitely was an improvement in our batting, but it was not good enough.”
Yuvraj batted at number four and by the time Uthappa came in at number five, only six overs remained in which the Warriors required 81. Asked if the two big hitters could have come higher up, Yuvraj replied, “We didn’t lose early wickets and batsmen up front have to go (after the bowling). Today we, should have come up the order. Unfortunately, the Pandey-Ryder partnership couldn’t get enough runs. It wasn’t that Manish wasn’t trying to hit, and Jesse was trying to increase the run-rate. At that stage we needed a few good overs but they bowled really well.”