IPL 2020: ‘Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers not delivering to their standards towards business end of tournament’, says Aakash Chopra
Former India opener Aakash Chopra said that Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers’ form in the business end of the tournament will put pressure on the rest of the RCB batting line-up.
Royal Challengers Bangalore have lost their past three games in the Indian Premier League 2020 as their batting line-up has failed to click. Against Chennai Super Kings, RCB captain Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers spent a lot of time in the middle, but failed to get going, and their team could not put on a challenging total.
In their next game against Mumbai Indians, openers Devdutt Padikkal and Josh Philippe gave their team a strong start, but Kohli and AB de Villiers’ failure with the bat put a lot of pressure on the middle-order, and RCB, once again, failed to set a challenging total. (Full coverage of IPL 2020)
Kohli and De Villiers could not get going against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday once again, and RCB suffered their third straight defeats.
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Speaking in a Youtube video, cricketer-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra said that Kohli, De Villiers’ form in the business end of the tournament will put pressure on the rest of the batting line-up.
“This game (against SRH) was all about Kohli and AB in my opinion. The RCB batting is not working. Kohli and AB are going to pay a huge price for their own success because they have set the yardstick very high and the two of them are not delivering to the standards they have set for themselves towards the business end of the tournament,” Chopra said.
“Whether it was the Chennai match where they were set and expected to take RCB to around 160 but were stopped at 140-145. Here also it was expected that the two of them will take them ahead together, but the team is not able to go ahead,” he added.
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“So if RCB keep losing matches continuously and if these two players don’t score runs regularly, Padikkal, Joshua Philippe, Gurkeerat are all support cast. The DNA of this team is all about Kohli and AB de Villiers scoring runs and they are not doing that,” he added.
“In the last match, they have a chance of defeating Delhi and qualifying in the top two but the winning signs are not being seen currently because batting first they scored just 120 runs in 120 balls, which is not going to be enough,” he signed off.
RCB face off against DC on Monday.