After his second century of the season took Royal Challengers Bangalore to a seven-wicket win over Rising Pune Supergiants, Virat Kohli said the match against Sunrisers Hyderabad, against whom they failed in a similar chase, had left him disappointed and that he wanted a course correction.
Kohli struck an unbeaten 108 (58b, 8x4, 7x6) here on Saturday as Royal Challengers Bangalore made 195/3 in 19.3 overs while pursuing Supergiants’ 191/6.
“With the game we played before this (against KKR) and the one in Hyderabad, we were struggling to defend scores,” he noted. “We had a chance to chase one down and I backed myself to go out there and go for the target; make sure I was there until the end and try and win the game for the team. In the last game in Hyderabad I couldn’t do that.
“I was very disappointed because I understand that if you want your team to do a certain thing, you have to go out there and do it yourself first to actually convince them that yes, ‘this is how I need to do it’. I failed to do that in Hyderabad and that hurt me a lot that I was in a situation where I could’ve contributed more to the team. I think I had that at the back of my head. That feeling was still there and that came through today in terms of wanting to stay till the end and finish the game,” explained Kohli who crossed the 500- run mark (541) this season.
Kohli gave other key players the credit for the win. “Obviously, you can’t do it all by yourself. Contributions from KL (Rahul) at the top of the order, Watto (Shane Watson) giving us the impetus in the middle even after AB (de Villiers) got out...Those things matter a lot. Sometimes we neglect those because someone gets a milestone but I think we should really consider their contributions as well.”
Supergiants’ IPL debutant Adam Zampa praised Kohli.
“When you are bowling to Virat Kohli at the moment, he is batting like a machine at the moment.”
Kohli faces suspension
Kohli faces a potential one-match suspension after the RCB took 105 minutes — 15 minutes more than stipulated time — to complete their overs in a T20 match. Obviously, the match officials will take time allowances into consideration before deciding if RCB took more time than is required. Kohli has already coughed up Rs 36 lakh for maintaining slow over rate in two matches and a third such offence immediately leads to a match-ban.
