The Royal Challengers Bangalore didn’t get off to an ideal start. Virat Kohli’s men lost their season opener to Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens.
Batting first, RCB scored 176 runs. Brendon McCullum provided a good start, courtesy his swashbuckling strokeplay. He made a 27-ball 43. Skipper Kohli joined AB de Villiers (44 off 23 balls) to steady the ship afterwards.
But one of the talking point in the game when it comes to Kohli, was something else.
The talking point of the game
The RCB skipper was all ears while fielding. During the 16th over of KKR innings, Chris Woakes found an edge off Rinku Singh to the keeper. The fielders weren’t much confident, but Kohli was convinced and signalled it for a review to the umpire.
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As it turned out, the batsman had nicked the ball. It was a crucial stage in the game. Rinku was dismissed for six and Kolkata still needed 20-plus runs to win the game. The incident became a subject of light-hearted discussion since it is MS Dhoni who usually calls the shots when it comes to taking the DRS for India.
Even though Kohli has been the captain of team India for over a year now.
We were 15 runs short: Kohli
The Bangalore skipper felt his side were 15 runs short. He also had a word of praise for the bowlers for getting them back in the game after a solid start by the Kolkata unit.
“We were 15 short with the bat, myself included. I played too many dot balls. Me and AB getting out in two balls to a part-timer was game-changing as well. We made a good game out of it. Quite a few positives. Difficult for the spinners to bowl on.”
Sunil Narine played a match-winning knock of 19-ball 50, opening the batting for the Knight Riders.
It was also the joint fourth-fastest fifty in the history of IPL. Kohli will have to put on his thinking cap on, as the fast-paced tournament only gets better from here on.
