The Kings XI Punjab did a double over the Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2020 on Thursday. Interestingly, these are the only two wins in the tournament for the KL Rahul-led side in 8 matches.
The RCB skipper Virat Kohli was trolled on social media for some strange decision-making on the day.
The key decision, of course, was to send AB de Villiers in to bat at No.6 position, after Washington Sundar and Shivam Dube, who failed with the bat. It was a decision that nearly no one watching the match could make sense of.
With the RCB losing two wickets in the first seven overs, everyone was expecting AB de Villiers to walk out in his usual No.4 position for the RCB. But out walked Washington Sundar.
For a moment, the decision could be thought to be that Sundar was sent in to hit a few quick runs. But he finally perished four overs later, having scored 13 runs of 14 balls.
Then again, when everyone thought that maybe ABD would walk out now, we had Shivam Dube come out instead. At one stage he was 8 runs of 12 balls, and skipper Virat Kohli could be seen urging him to go for his shots. Then he hit Ravi Bishnoi for two consecutive sixes, but eventually perished having scored just 23 off 19 balls.
Then finally, AB de Villiers came out at No. 6 in the 16th over of the match, but could not seem to get going and perished just five balls later having scored only 2 runs.
Virat Kohli later tried to defend his decision and said, “We had a chat about it [de Villiers batting at No. 6]. It was a message about the left-hand, right-hand combination. Sometimes these decisions you take, don’t come off.”
Kohli’s struggles with the bat in Sharjah
Kohli was also trolled for his own batting performance in the two matches at Sharjah.
In the last two matches at Sharjah (against KXIP on Thursday and versus KKR on Monday), the RCB skipper has hit only 4 boundaries in 67 deliveries that he has faced. He has not hit a six in Sharjah so far.
Several fans on Twitter called out Kohli for his insistence on converting the singles into doubles, and asked him to not always play it safe.
On Thursday, Kohli hit just three boundaries in his 39-ball 48, and those three boundaries came in the 8 balls he had faced in the powerplay. Outside the powerplay, Kohli did not hit a boundary and scored 32 runs off 31 balls.