Having a bad day? Well, think about Royal Challenger Bangalore and Indian team captain Virat Kohli.
The Royal Challengers Bangalore took on Kings XI Punjab yesterday on day 7 of the Indian Premier League (IPL). RCB was considered a probable favourite keeping in mind their last match and recent form.
Kohli won the toss and elected to field so that his spinners won’t have to deal with the dew in the second innings. KXIP captain KL Rahul, however, had other plans as he smashed an unbeaten 132 to take KXIP to a mammoth score of 206. The star-studded RCB batting lineup couldn’t do much as well as they castled for only 109 runs. Kohli dropped two catches of Rahul and scored only 1 run as RCB faced a huge and embarrassing defeat by 97 runs!
Kohli got fined!
Poor performance by him and the team and dropped catches weren’t the only things that went wrong for Kohli. He was fined a massive sum of 12 lakh rupees! The fine was imposed because of slow over-rate.
The first innings lasted an hour and 51 minutes. This was considered an offence under the IPL’s Code of Conduct relating to minimum over-rate offences.
KXIP captain KL Rahul, on the other hand, had a great day. He scored an unbeaten 132 off just 69 balls which included 14 fours and 7 massive sixes! He also made the record of the highest score by an Indian batsman in the IPL. The best part of his innings was his extension of the classic textbook shots. Without much slogging, he was able to take on express bowlers like Umesh Yadav and Dale Steyn.
The pace bowlers, especially in the depth, failed RCB again. Steyn conceded a sum of 57 runs in his 4 overs. Umesh Yadav was again expensive as he gave away 35 runs in his 3 overs. On the other hand, Yuzvendra Chahal was again fantastic. Navdeep Saini was also able to restrict the flow of runs a bit. Shivam Dubey tried to do the same but wasn’t spared at the end. RCB may consider making some changes like giving chance to the expensive buy Chris Morris. They can also have Mohammed Siraj in the side.
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