Dubai: Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli on Thursday admitted that his mistakes on the field led to a 97-run defeat against Kings XI Punjab at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
Kohli dropped two easy catches of Kings XI Punjab skipper KL Rahul in the 17th and 18th over after which the latter punished RCB to the full as KXIP put up a score of 206/3.
Rahul smashed 26 runs off Dale Steyn in the 19th over and ended the 20th with a four and consecutive sixes. He was unbeaten on 132 off 69 balls at the end of the innings, which is the highest score ever by a captain in the IPL and the highest by any Indian in the history of the tournament.
“I think we were good in the middle phase with the ball, they got off to a decent start and we pulled things back nicely,” said Kohli on Star Sports after the match. “I have to stand in front and take the brunt of it, not the best day in the office, couple of important chances of KL when he was set and that cost us 35-40 runs at a later stage maybe if we restricted them to 180 we wouldn’t have under pressure from ball one to chase. We know exactly where we went wrong and I have to put my hand up and say couple of important chances went down.”
Kohli came in at no.4, allowing Josh Philippe to take his no.3 spot. The tactic did not work with Philippe being dismissed for a duck and Kohli walking back on one run.
“He (Philippe) has batted at the top of the order for Western Australia and done well in the BBL as well, early days in the tournament so we thought we will maximise his ability and see how we go from thereon. We thought we will give ourselves a bit of depth in the middle overs,” said Kohli.
