Royal Challengers Bangalore’s (RCB) stand-in skipper Virat Kohli had a good day at the office as the visitors beat Punjab Kings (PBKS) by 24 runs. Kohli was at his animated self in front of Mohali crowd. After a half-century with the beat, Kohli was spot-on with his decisions. In the 11th over of PBKS’ run chase when PBKS were in total control of the game, Kohli was seen playing ‘rock papers scissors’ while waiting for the third umpire’s decision.
Harshal Patel bowled a low full toss which with Jitesh Sharma on the pad as he missed the flick shot. Patel appealed and the umpire immediately raised his finger. Sharma waited for a while before opting for DRS. While waiting for Chris Gaffaney’s decision, Kohli and Maxwell played ‘rock papers scissors’ which was caught on the camera.
The decision went in Sharma’s favour as hawkeye showed that the ball was going down the leg side and not hitting the stumps. He was batting on 4 then. The wicketkeeper-batter went on to score 41 runs from 27 deliveries including two fours and three sixes. His 41-run knock kept the run chase alive. But he ran out of partners and got out in the penultimate over.
Earlier, Kohli scored 59 runs from 47 deliveries including five fours and one six. He shared a 137-run opening partnership with Faf du Plessis who did not field due to an injury he picked up in the previous game.
“The table can't define your team. It's towards game 13 or 14 we can try and focus on what we need to do. Faf batted really well on that pitch. His innings ensured we had that 20-30 extra at the end. The pitch was very rough underneath, there was not enough water there I guess. There was hardly any sixes hit off the back foot against the spinners. The strategy was to bat deep to have a crack at 190,” Kohli said in the post-match presentation.
Kohli also revealed what he told the bowlers as they stepped on to the field to defend a 175-run target.
“(I) Told them (the bowlers) that the target was more than enough. (We) Cannot afford to take the game deep, especially when they lost 6-7 wickets. The batting line ups are deeper, but we also have options in our bowling. At the halfway stage, tha talk was to take the game to the opposition and you kind of break the game open when you pick up 4 wickets in the powerplay,” he added.
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