IPL 2021 | Should have been chasing 160, got away from our plans, rues Virat Kohli 

Since moving out of Chennai, the chinks in the RCB's armour are out in the open. Their death bowling woes have resurfaced yet again. Today, they gave away 60 runs in the last five overs after having a firm grip on the game in the first 15 overs. Punjab were able to cash in on Harshal Patel's poor death bowling, pocketing 40 from his last two overs, with 22 coming off his final over as KL Rahul exhibited his full range to finish with 91 off 57 and helped the Kings to 179. 

Losing skipper Virat Kohli was left disappointed with the death bowling and felt that the team couldn't execute their plans well under pressure. 

"They got off to a good start but we pulled things back somewhat after five down. Should have been chasing 160, when they were 116/5, but we gave away 25-odd runs in the end. Focused too much on what the batters were doing. We got away from our plans. We gave too many bad balls for boundaries," Kohli said in the post-match presentation. 

The Royal Challengers not only had a horror night in terms of death bowling but they also got off to a poor start, merely adding 36 runs off the first six overs with both Virat Kohli and Rajat Patidar batting at a strike-rate below 100 in the powerplay overs. Kohli stated that it wasn't easy to get going from the word go but did admit that the batsmen could have been smarter.

"As batsmen we could have tried different things early on. It was tough to hit through the line. It was all about trying to get a partnership and have a strike rate of more than 110. We were not able to do that as a batting unit. Just a few little tweaks we need to address going forward. There are areas we need to improve."

Rajat Patidar, pretty much like Kohli batted slowly and made 31 off 30 and has got plenty of criticism for his sluggish knock. However, Kohli backed the youngster and stated that he's a very good player and will fight back strongly. 

"The composition of our team is such that we give him (Patidar) the freedom to play at number 3. It's (batting order) situational, this is a good balance for our batting line up. Rajat is a quality player, just that tonight wasn't his night. In the end we gave away 25 runs too many. One wicket there and we could have squeezed them. We couldn't execute our plans. Pulled few runs nicely as Harshal and Jamieson hit few runs towards the end. The margin could have been a bigger one otherwise."