We had no choice but to drop Gayle to make room for de Villiers, says Binny

Royal Challengers Bangalore’s all-rounder Stuart Binny said they were forced to drop Chris Gayle against Kings XI Punjab to make space for fit-again AB de Villiers.

With Australian Shane Watson named the captain in the absence of the injured Virat Kohli, it leaves only three spots vacant for the foreign players due to the Indian Premier League rule of restricting the overseas participation to four in the final XI. Seamers Tymal Mills and Billy Stanlake were the two other foreigners included on Monday.

With De Villiers indispensable for a depleted RCB, it meant Gayle, who was just 25 runs short of 10,000 T20 runs, had to sit out. Though the South African strokemaker, returning from a back injury, shored up the side with an astounding 46-ball 89, the rest of the batsmen failed to contribute during their eight-wicket defeat to Kings. It was RCB’s second loss in three matches.

“Shane Watson has batted in the top order for all his career, so there was no question of changing his position. We had no option but to drop Chris Gayle to make way for AB in the top order. It was not a tactical strategy but simply we had no other choice. As soon as AB is fit he walks into RCB’s playing XI,” Binny reasoned.

“We did not put enough runs on board. When you are batting first, 148 runs is not a good score. In T20, the start is very important. If you are two down in the first four overs, then rest of the team struggles.”

Binny admitted they needed to pick early wickets to defend their meagre total.
“When we batted in the first innings, the wicket was a bit two-paced. The ball that was bowled cross seam, held into the surface a bit. It was that kind of wicket where you need 15-20 balls to get to read the pace of the pitch,” he said.

“When you have a low total to defend, it’s crucial to take at least two wickets in the power-plays. We could not do that against KXIP.

Kings’ left-arm spinner Axar Patel, who also won the man of  the match award, said their good bowling in first 10 overs restricted RCB.

“In this ground I think a score of 180 to 200 can be chased. We restricted them below 150 with some good bowling in the first 10 over. Then De Villiers started to fire. He played some unbelievable shots. But we were confident of chasing down the total,” he said.
DH News Service