IPL 2020: 3 mistakes committed by RCB against KXIP

After losing their first encounter in an unfortunate manner, Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) opened their account in style. They crushed Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) by 97 runs and registered their first victory. KXIP’s captain KL Rahul played a memorable knock and scored the first century of IPL 2020. He also earned Man of the Match award for his exceptional innings.

RCB’s bowling looked quite vulnerable against Rahul’s exhibition and their impoverished fielding effort just made the things worse. With top 3 batsmen back in the pavilion in the first three overs itself, RCB never looked like chasing such a massive total. After winning the first game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), Bangalore’s team was looking confident of another victory but they made numerous mistakes which didn’t let the things go in their favour.

Here are the 3 mistakes that RCB committed in their match against KXIP:-

1. Dropping KL Rahul’s catches

KL Rahul was batting in an outstanding form throughout his innings. However, while trying to hit big shots in the death overs, he mistimed two of them and both went towards captain Virat Kohli. Kohli is regarded as one of the safest fielders in the deep but he dropped both the catches and KXIP’s skipper went on to score an amazing hundred. If Kohli would have held on to those catches, KXIP would have finished under 180. With less pressure during their chase, RCB might have reached the target.

2. Not keeping Yuzvendra Chahal and Navdeep Saini’s overs for death

RCB’s best bowlers in their win against SRH, Yuzvendra Chahal and Navdeep Saini were not used by skipper Kohli in the ideal fashion. When a set batsman was present in the middle, Kohli was expected to keep some overs of his best bowlers for the death. It didn’t happen and KL Rahul destroyed the RCB bowling line up in the last few overs. KXIP scored 80 runs in the last five overs and that turned out to be the reason for such a gigantic target.

3. Over-aggressive approach with the bat in first few overs

With the likes of Aaron Finch, Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers, RCB has one of the strongest batting order in the tournament. If they could have had a solid start, a target of 207 was not impossible for them. However, they decided to go with an over-aggressive approach from ball one and the that led them to lose three wickets in the first three overs. AB de Villiers and Aaron Finch tried to pull things back after the early wickets, but the pressure of a massive run chase didn’t allow RCB batsmen to play long innings.