Royal Challengers Bangalore are known for their all-powerful batting line-up. They boast of some of the biggest hitters of the cricket ball in the world today. It is their bowling that has more often than not let them down. As the IPL 7 began, breaking the norm, RCB bowlers stepped up and performed admirably contributing to their good start. However, against
Mumbai Indians at Wankhede on Tuesday, they were wayward conceding 25 extras which in the end proved to be the difference between the sides.
RCB coach Daniel Vettori refused to pinpoint the reason(s) behind the team's fourth defeat in seven games but did acknowledge that the bowling let them down against MI.
"Bowling let us down a little bit. My main issue is mainly around the extras. I think the extras contributed a lot to that. 25 extras is far too many and that was almost the difference between the two teams," Vettori said during a post-match press conference on Monday.
Chasing 188 is by no means an easy task but with the likes of Chris Gayle,
Virat Kohli and
AB de Villiers in their ranks, RCB must have backed themselves to get over the line. They were in good shape even after losing both their openers, sitting pretty on 94/2 with Kohli and De Villiers in the middle. However, they lost both the batsmen within the space of six deliveries making life difficult for the upcoming batsmen.
"It was a tough total to chase. 190 in any T20 game is hard and the start that we got was fantastic. Chris and Parthiv set the tone and Virat picked it up as well. We lost some crucial wickets and when you do that you put up pressure on guys coming in. It's the guys that are set who need to kick on. Unfortunately it didn't happen today," Vettori observed.
The match was also marred by controversy with some ugly scenes being played out in the middle involving RCB paceman
Mitchell Starc and MI allrounder Kieron Pollard. Vettori said it was something that nobody wants to see on a cricket field but refused to speculate anything
"It's obviously an incident you never want to see on a cricket field."
"I haven't had the chance to talk to Mitchell or anyone else involved. But I am sure that the match referee will be involved. We will wait and see what it is before we speculate on anything," he said.
