AB de Villiers smashed a 44-ball 82 to help Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Kings XI Punjab and ensure that they lived to fight another day in the Indian Premier League.
Virat Kohli’s men claimed their fourth victory in five games as Punjab’s woeful run continued.
Visiting captain Ravichandran Ashwin felt that the team could have shown more composure in pressure-situations. However, the spinner maintained that they were never outplayed by any opposition despite the poor run of form.
“There can be so many places where I thought we lost the game, but honestly in a T20 game it’s all about winning those pressure moments which we have not been able to win in the last few games,” he said.
“If we had actually held onto those crunch moments, we might have had a couple of more points or probably four points but that’s that, we weren’t able to close it out and we got some experience in the middle order couldn’t really close it out in the crucial moments today.
The Bold have defended the fortress yet again! What an incredible performance by our team. Now that's how we #PlayBold pic.twitter.com/qdQJc8t2Vh
— Royal Challengers (@RCBTweets) April 24, 2019
“It’s all about getting one win together and we can get on a roll like RCB won three in a row now, so it’s all about getting one win and then we go back home and then we probably try to win a couple on the trot. It’s very important to keep trust in the players.
“We held onto giving players enough opportunities to try and come out on trumps. It’s important to back the players. In all the eleven games we played to be brutally honest, we haven’t been outplayed by any opposition which is a great positive for us. The one area we could really work on is the powerplay and the back-end finishing.”
Kohli, meanwhile, is glad that his team are enjoying their cricket and believes that this has helped them pull out four wins in the last five games. The Indian skipper wants the team to make a statement, as the world takes note.
“We won 4 out of the last 5 we have played, it could have been 5 out of 5. We are just looking to enjoy our cricket. Tonight was another example of having fun. The partnership of ABD and Stoinis changed the match for us,” he said.
“At one stage we thought 175 was good but AB and Marcus got us past 200. The way they played was the deciding factor. Our only focus was to play good as a team, we know that we are a good side, losing 6 in a row hurt all of us. That big break before Mohali helped us.
“It is important that we don’t take any pressure. We just need to play how the world knows we can play. When two left-handers came in, we got a lot of dot balls and that was a crucial factor for us. Having 6-7 bowling options is a luxury for any team.
“I can pick and choose who is bowling well. Marcus brings in a lot of balance to our team. It was an outstanding effort by the bowlers today.”
#ENDofGAME #TogetherWeRise #ChallengeAccepted #PlayBold pic.twitter.com/jeD0rQexxh
— Royal Challengers (@RCBTweets) April 24, 2019
Despite changing the game with the bat, De Villiers deflected the credit to the bowlers who did well to hold Punjab at the death.
“I tried to stay calm in the last few overs. It is not easy always, the game is happening at a rapid pace. We know our home ground very well, it hasn’t been a great hunting ground for us to start with but we are turning things around now. And we are doing things well now,” said the South African.
“We are doing good as a team now. I still think 160 was a par score but it gets easier in the second innings. Our bowlers executed their plans to perfection in the end.”
