In loss to Delhi, Kohli sees opportunity to improve
BENGALURU: Virat Kohli wants his players to learn from the mistakes they made against Delhi Daredevils.
When on song, the Royal Challenger Bangalore batting line-up comprising Chris Gayle, skipper Kohli, AB de Villiers as well as all-rounder Shane Watson — who joined the team this season — can take the game away. But like in the past, Daredevils bowlers upstaged the batsmen in the death overs.
“Delhi bowled well. Bit of it was their bowling well and a bit of it was a lack of execution from our end. We need more game awareness. Sometimes it is easy to drift away when you have a good start,” said Kohli. He praised Quinton de Kock’s knock, a 51-ball 108 for Delhi, to draw attention to his own batsmen failing to cash in on the platform provided. “He was wonderful, especially the way he handled the spinners,” he said.
“This is a lesson for us, it’s better it happened in the early stages. It is very easy to get carried away with the team we have and not care about the small little things that turn the game around. We need to make sure we respect the game and make sure when we are in a commanding position (we cash in), because this game can drift away from you very quickly.”
Besides their bowling, RCB will be concerned that Chris Gayle has not scored big since his century against England in the World T20. He was out for one against Hyderabad and fell for a third-ball duck against Daredevils.
However, Kohli was confident Gayle will rediscover his form soon. “We got 230 without him firing and almost got 200 without him firing,” he said. “Chris takes a lot of pride in playing for RCB. He has been a standout player for us. People just expect a lot out of him every time in T20 cricket because he is so good at it.”
“He has got 17 centuries in T20. So, expectations are high and Gayle wants to live up to them.”