Virat Kohli was chosen as player-of-the-match for his superb innings of 77 runs that guided Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a four-wicket win over Punjab Kings, their first win of IPL 2024. However, had PBKS fielders not dropped a couple of catches, Kohli could have well been dismissed for a duck.
Opening the innings in chase of 177 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Kohli was handed a life when on 0 after he drove away from the body with his feet rooted to the crease resulting in an edge but Jonny Bairstow dropped a sitter in the slip cordon as the ball raced away for four runs.
Kohli belted four fours in that over of Sam Curran to give RCB a flying start.
The next chance was offered when Kohli was on 33. However, this time, it wasn’t a straightforward catch with fielder Rahul Chahar diving to his left for a difficult one-handed attempt but the ball didn’t stick. This time too it the drop was off the bowling of Curran.
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RCB would chase down the target with four deliveries to spare.
PBKS captain Shikhar Dhawan thought his team was 10-15 runs short of what could’ve been a defendable total but also rued the dropped catches that cost them dearly.
“Good game, we brought it back. I think we were 10-15 runs less. Should have encashed in the first six overs. We had to pay the price for dropping Kohli. We lost momentum there, it was crucial,” Dhawan said at the post-match presentation.
To PBKS credit, they didn’t give RCB a free-ride towards the end and dragged the contest into the last over only for Dinesh Karthik to end the contest with a flurry of boundaries.
“Match went till last over, at the end we could have bowled better. Harpreet (Brar) is bowling really well, that too to left-handers on a small ground. He soaked in pressure and got breakthroughs,” Dhawan said.
Dhawan was the top-scorer for PBKS but felt his strike-rate, especially in the Powerplay, could have been better.
“I was happy with my runs but think could’ve played faster in the first six. We lost two wickets which put pressure too. That total we thought was par,” he said.
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