Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) captain Dinesh Karthik took his hat off for Royal Challengers Bangalore's (RCB) batting maestro, AB de Villiers, after his scintillating knock made a telling difference in the outcome in Sharjah on Monday (October 12), resulting in KKR's heavy loss by 82 runs.
Bowling first after losing the toss, KKR for a while looked like restricting RCB to a total around 150-160 with opposition batters struggling to time the ball on a slowing surface.
WATCH- AB de Villiers blows KKR bowlers away in a special Sharjah knock
That, until De Villiers walked in and played an outstanding knock of 73 not out in just 33 balls to take his team to an impregnable total of 194/2. Later, KKR batsmen crumbled under pressure, managing just 112/9 in response.
Speaking at the end of Match 28 of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Karthik acknowledged De Villiers' effort that put a shade on rest of the batsmen on show.
"He (de Villiers) is a world-class player and hard to stop him on a ground like this and at the end of the day his innings was the difference between both sides," said Karthik at the post-match presentation ceremony, as quoted by Cricbuzz.
Among KKR batsmen, only youngster Shubman Gill (34) got going and not one from the rest managed to reach double digits. In the bowling department also, only spinner Varun Chakravarthy (0/25) could claim to have come out relatively unscathed from De Villiers' onslaught.
It was a defeat that could damage the morale of any side. Hence, Karthik said it's important for them to embrace the three-day break before their next match on Friday (October 16) in Abu Dhabi against Mumbai Indians (MI) while also trying to overcome the issues holding back the side.
"We need to sit down and make sure there are few things we need to do better. Batting is one area we didn't do well today and that's something we are going to try and improve," he said.
"We have three days break and we need to start fresh after that. It's been an interesting IPL so far as a lot of teams are comfortable batting first. I think every captain has a day like this where everything doesn't go according to plan and it's one of those days for me, I don't want to read too much into it," Karthik added.
