IPL 2021 | One of the seamers has to stand up for Royal Challengers Bangalore, believes Kevin Pietersen

09/25/2021

Kevin Pietersen has stated that the sole responsibility of taking wickets for RCB is on Chahal’s shoulder and the seamers has to stand up and take responsibility for picking wickets. He further added that the team lost from a good position in the last match and that’s the real issue.

Royal Challengers Bangalore lost to Chennai Super Kings by 6 wickets in their last fixture after having scored 156 runs in the first innings with half-centuries from Virat Kohli and Devdutt Padikkal. The duo combined for a 111 run opening stand but once they were dismissed, RCB failed to add too much to the scoresheet. Chasing a target of 157 was an easy task at Sharjah and the opening duo Ruturaj and Faf du Plessis gave CSK a solid start. The pacers were not able to dismiss any of them and were leaking runs and by the time Chahal and Maxwell picked up wickets the damage was done.

Kevin Pietersen is of the opinion that RCB rely heavily on Chahal to pick wickets and that other bowlers should also step up and pick wickets for the team at crucial stages.

“There are bowling issues too. We keep saying it, who is the bowler (who is going get wickets... Chahal can't continue to do it. I know h gets wickets, he gets wickets for RCB but you cannot say to him that you've got to do it every match. Somebody else has to stand up. One of the seamers have to stand up," Pietersen said in a post-match show on Star Sports.

In the first innings, RCB got off to a flying start with 111 runs from 13 overs with both openers scoring fifties. The team was in a good position and was heading towards a total of 200 but failure to score big at the death resulted in RCB setting a target of just 157. Dwayne Bravo played a crucial role in restricting the opposition for a low score picking 3 wickets for 24 runs from his four overs. Shardul Thakur also bowled well in the death overs picking a couple of wickets. Sharing his views on how RCB batted he said that the team was hammered against KKR and now they lost from a good position which is a serious issue to address.

"You can gain momentum through winning and then you can gain momentum through losing as well. If you are going to get hammered like they were against KKR and now you are going to lose a game from being in a very good position then there is a problem. They were 111 for no loss but lost the game, that's an issue," Pietersen opined.

Royal Challengers Bangalore will play their next match against Mumbai Indians on September 26.