JOIN USWicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik was perhaps in the best position to witness AB de Viliers and Virat Kohli stack up runs and the Gujarat Lions’ player termed the batsmanship “mind-boggling.”
“I think I was in the best position,” noted Karthik when asked to sum up the Bangalore duo’s batting. “I was in a better position than the runner; I was that close to the batsman. It was mind-boggling. These kinds of innings don't happen often. They are two special players and they really stood up today for the team and did a brilliant job for RCB,” he remarked.
Royal Challengers paceman Chris Jordan, who bagged four wickets (4/11) to hasten Lions’ end, also hailed de Villiers and Kohli.
“A little bit surreal really,” he said when asked as to what he made of de Villiers and Kohli’s batting. “Obviously I've joined the tournament halfway through and coming into a team of this calibre, I was hoping that something like that would happen and I would be able to witness something like that live. And boy, what a performance it was! They really showed their class today. And really went through the gears. When they needed to take a single they took a single, when it was time to go, they played. Don't think they mishit a ball which was phenomenal really. They really set up the game for us bowlers to go out there and express ourselves and take wickets, which we did,” he explained.
Lions have a five-day gap now before they play their penultimate game and Karthik felt it was most welcome break after this kind of a match.
“I think after a game like this, it's good to have a five-day break,” he began. “You need two days to just feel the game and forget it and then move on. In five days' time, we would come back as better players... At least, mentally we would've forgotten these two innings because if we had to come back to play tomorrow or day after you would see the backlash. We would've been a bit worried going into the game. To be fair, five days is a good break for us. Some of the guys are going away and we would regroup after. We got two important games and we would want to come out hard there,” he offered.