Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs. (Source: BCCI)
Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs on Thursday to pick up their third win on the trot and remain in the hunt for the playoffs in season 11 of the Indian Premier League, 2018. Put into bat RCB posted a commanding total of 218/6 in 20 overs and from thereon SRH were always second favourites. However, on a pitch which offered minimum assistance to bowlers, the Sunrisers put up to a spirited performance to score 204/3. falling short by just 14 runs. Skipper Kane Williamson played a sensational inning of 81 from 42 balls but it wasn’t enough for his team as RCB picked up two more points to move to 12 points and move up to the fifth spot on the points table.
Reflecting on his team’s performance, a beaming Virat Kohli said, “I have seen many of these games before. Just had to stay calm at the end of it. After a point of time, you need to understand that the bowlers are in control of what they want to do. We have two games like this. The one against Mumbai was something similar. The wicket was very good and in the second innings, there was a lot of dew. Hats off to the bowlers for maintaining the composure and giving us two points. The last three games have been like this with our backs against the wall.”
Looking at the road ahead, Kohli said, “We head to Rajasthan with momentum on our side. We are pretty comfortable with the side. Hats off to Moeen to perform the way he did today. Teams don’t want us to win. We sense fear and pounce.”
Kohli also applauded AB De Villiers for his catch and said, “That was spiderman stuff (about ABD’s catch). You don’t do that as normal human beings. I thought it was going for a six but he pulled it off. He can do freakish things but I am used to it now. His fielding I am pretty used to now. Need to thank the crowd as it is our last home game.”