Royal Challengers Bangalore lost their eliminator match against Sunrisers Hyderabad by 6 wickets and two balls to spare. Virat and company batted in the first innings and only managed to score 132 runs.
While chasing the target SRH crumbled in front of RCB bowlers at first instance but and the match went pretty closer. But later Warner and his company got their upper hand in the match and seized the game for Hyderabad.
Sunrisers Hyderabad will play against the Delhi Capitals in the Qualifier 2 and the winner of that match will directly head to he finals.
Royals captain Virat Kohli went emotional after loosing the match. RCB have never won the cup even then they have tremendous fan support which many dreams still dreams.
Virat at post-match presentation
“If you talk about the first innings I don’t think we had enough runs on the board. We made one helluva game in the second half, the positions we got ourselves into in the second half.. It is a game of margins and if Kane was taken there then it is a different ball game. Altogether they put us under a lot of pressure in the first innings. Few soft dismissals, few fortunate ones for them as well and we just didn’t have enough runs on the board. Maybe a bit of nerves, maybe a bit of hesitation, we need to be more expressive with the bat. We didn’t have any phases in the game where we got away from the opposition. We just allowed bowlers to bowl to the areas they wanted to and didn’t put enough pressure on them. In the last 2-3 games we have hit it straight to the fielders, lot of good shots going to the fielders. It has been a strange kind of phase in the last 4-5 games. Couple of people have stood and had a good season, Devdutt is one of them and Siraj has had a good comeback. Yuzi has been solid as ever, AB has been solid as ever. Couple of positives for RCB and Devdutt is one of them, he stepped up nicely and getting 400+ runs is not easy. He has played with a lot of class and efficiency for the team. Very happy for him. The others contributed but just not enough. That also tells you the strength of the teams in the IPL, no team is run away favourites as such and every team has strong players, one of the other reasons is playing in only three venues and there’s no home and away advantage. Similar conditions for everyone and that’s the reason this has been one of the competitive IPL this year. It was amazing to have had this opportunity to come out and play. There’s a bigger picture going around here and we are all contributing to that. To all our fans who have supported us like every year, we just want to thank them.”
