Bengaluru: The Royal Challengers Bangalore’s miserable run continued in the IPL after succumbing to their fifth loss of the season at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Monday.
The victorious Kolkata Knight Riders came from behind to exploit the RCB’s bowling, which has been their perennial problem since the beginning. After losing their home match, a visibly dejected Stuart Binny admitted, “We’re disappointed with the way we bowled tonight. We have struggled in the middle overs to get wickets. Tonight it was about trying to get wickets. We needed to get Russell and Yusuf out if we had to have a chance today and it didn't come off. We've got to go back and see the areas we bowled in. We didn't bowl too many balls which were full. That was the plan but the execution was pretty poor tonight.”
After a sedate start, RCB’s lower order fired during death to put up a challenging total of 185. And yet again the bowling let them down. “We had calculated that we wanted 170-175. We ended up with one good over towards the back end, got some momentum going in at the end of the innings and then got an early wicket. We bowled well in the first eight overs. We had them trying to catch up with the run rate but lost it from the 12th over onwards.”
With the bowling being RCB’s main concern, the inclusion of Chris Jordan has come under questioning. “That's not for me to decide. Definitely we're looking for someone who can do well in the death for us. Obviously it hasn't gone according to plan at the death. Especially at the Chinnaswamy, the ball seems to travel. Every third ball is going over the ropes at the death. It's all about getting our execution right and I don't think we got that right tonight,” explained Binny.
Meanwhile, man of the match Yusuf Pathan was satisfied with his association with Andre Russell to snatch the victory to climb to the second spot.
"In the initial period of our partnership, Russel took the role of going after the bowling, and I steadied the innings, which helped us build a good partnership,
and from there on the target began to look small," said after his heroic innings.
With the top-order failing, Pathan was happy that the middle-order got to step in and take control. “One thing however is good about KKR - even if the top-order fails, the middle order comes to the party as we did today, after the early collapse. They came out good and snatched victory from the jaws of RCB.”
