After their openers laid a solid foundation, the middle-order failed, especially in the last five overs, and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli felt, it was that period that came back to haunt his team in the five-wicket loss to Mumbai Indians (MI) in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday (October 28).
Half-centurion Devdutt Padikkal (74) and his able partner Josh Philippe (33) put on 71 runs for the first wicket inside 8 overs. Yet, RCB could only manage a middling score of 164/6 in their innings after being put into the bat first.
With Kohli (9) and AB de Villiers (15) failing, the rest of the batting unit too didn't find the sweet spot consistently in slog-overs, resulting in regular wickets for the opposition.
"It was a strange phase of batting (the last five overs of the RCB innings). Everything went to the fielders and these kind of things happen. They bowled in good areas in the last 5 overs and stopped us 20 runs short," said Kohli at the post-match presentation, as quoted by ANI.
The skipper, though, was pleased with the bowling effort where Washington Sundar (0/20) delivered another economical spell while Mohammed Siraj (2/28) and Yuzvendra Chahal (2/37) got him the breakthroughs and it took a superlative fifty (79* off 43 balls) from MI's Suryakumar Yadav to see his team through.
"We were in the game until the 17th over and that was a decent effort by our bowlers. It's basically up to the gut of the captain and the conditions, we thought Dale and Morris for the initial swing and Washy in the powerplay," Kohli said.
"We needed a few wickets there, but their batsmen did a good job. This is always going to happen - some teams peak early and some do better later."
"As we can see, the teams in the lower half are turning out some really good performances now. When it's a top-two clash, it will always be intense and in a competition like the IPL, you can't expect any team to back down and be blown away," he added.
Despite the loss, RCB stay second in the points table with seven wins in twelve outings. Kohli's team next face Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) in Sharjah on Saturday (October 31).
