Virat Kohli cherishes the fact that other teams don’t want RCB to win

Before the start of the IPL chants of ‘E Sala Cup Namade’ keep reverberating in and around Bengaluru. The Royal Challengers Bangalore looked a very strong side on paper and it seemed that they finally had their bowling sorted out after a couple of good buys at the auction. But destiny struck again and RCB found themselves in similar situations like the previous seasons and seemed to have no answers to the questions posed by oppositions.

Since IPL is a two-month tournament, teams have the luxury of losing a few matches before discovering the winning formula. The Royal Challengers Bangalore have started to win matches off late and suddenly have come back alive in the tournament. Virat Kohli and his men lived to fight another day after they defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs.

AB de Villiers and Moeen Ali played posted half-centuries and their crucial knocks took RCB to 218 runs which seemed too big an ask from the Sunrisers. But Kane Williamson kept his side in the hunt to chase down the total before faltering in the final hurdle.

A morale-boosting victory

“Teams don’t want us to win. That is a great position to be in. We sense fear and pounce. That has been the case. I have seen many of these games before. Just had to stay calm at the end of it. After a point of time, you need to understand that the bowlers are in control of what they want to do. We have two games like this. The one against Mumbai was something similar.” Kohli said at the post-match presentation.

A couple of outstanding catches were grabbed in the match while a few sitters were dropped. There was a lot of dew on the field but the bowlers kept their nerves to ensure that RCB prevailed in another thrilling encounter. Tim Southee bowled an impressive 17th over in which he conceded only six runs that probably sealed the tie for the men in red.

Kohli also had a few words for De Villiers who took a stunner on the field. “That was Spiderman stuff (about ABD’s catch). You don’t do that as normal human beings. I thought it was going for a six but he pulled it off, then the jump and then the balance,” he added. This was RCB’s last home game and they move to Jaipur to face the Rajasthan Royals in the all-important clash.

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