Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) suffered an agonizing one-run defeat at the hands of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Match 36 of the IPL 2024 season on Sunday (April 21).
Virat Kohli's bizarre dismissal was one of the highlights of the thriller at Eden Gardens. Chasing 223 to win, the RCB star came out all guns blazing as he smashed Harshit Rana for a boundary and six in the very first over and followed it with another maximum against Mitchell Starc.
However, the right-hander was caught and bowled by Rana for 18 off 7 balls in the first delivery of the third over. The ball seemed to have gone above the waist-line initially and Kohli was calling for a no-ball, but it was not given and the third umpire also did not give it a no-ball and adjudged Kohli out.
Replays suggested that the ball would have been below waist-high at the popping crease. However, when Virat, who was well ahead of the popping crease, hit the ball, it appeared above his waist.
After the disappointing loss, RCB skipper Faf du Plessis expressed his disappointment at Virat Kohli’s dismissal.
“It was crazy, rules are rules, Virat and myself thought that the ball was higher than the waist (on Kohli's dismissal), I guess they measured from the popping crease, one team thinks it's high, the other doesn't. That's how the game goes at times,” Du Plessis said in the post-match interaction.
Despite losing Kohli and Du Plessis (7) cheaply, RCB rode on a 102-run stand between Rajat Patidar (52 off 23) and Will Jacks (55 off 32) to bounce back in the chase. However, Andre Russell dismissed both of them in the 12th over to detail the chase.
Subsequently, Cameron Green (4) and Mahipal Lomror (6) were dismissed by Sunil Narine in the same over as RCB slipped to 155/6. Dinesh Karthik (25 off 18) and Karn Sharma (20 off 7) came up with valiant efforts. Karn hit Mitchell Starc for three sixes in the final over, but KKR managed to hold their nerves and win by a run.
“Then the partnership, it was magnificent (on the Jacks-Patidar partnership), but when you don't win too many games, some sort of panic sets in and the Narine over was game-changing. You don't feel that you have time to settle down and bat (on the evolution of the IPL this season), the game doesn't allow it to do that, obviously you have an extra batter, but in chases like these, you have to keep going. The match-up against Narine, I thought that was the game changing over,” Du Plessis remarked.
“The small things, I am actually proud of the boys tonight, the way we bowled and fielded, we did give away a couple of big overs towards the end, but I thought we kept them down to a par score. We thought we'll go hard in the batting powerplay, find those boundaries at the start of the innings. We were desperate, 10/10 from an effort perspective, the way we put up the effort in the ground, the faces told the story. We've got an unbelievable fanbase, we want to make them happy, we want them to have a smile on their face. We'll have to continue putting in our efforts and try to change things around,” he concluded.
It was RCB’s seventh loss in eight games this season. They continued to occupy the last position on the points table featuring 10 teams.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru will next face Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad on April 25.
