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Internet Desk: The Royal Challengers Bangalore had a shocker of a season in this year’s IPL tournament. The Virat Kohli captained side was the first team to not qualify for the play-offs this season. All the stars along with the others failed to shine in the tournament. Virat Kohli too failed to perform after returning from a shoulder injury.
“We’ve suffered at home, we’ve suffered away,” Kohli told IPL.com.
“It’s been a season to forget. Everything we’re trying to do, it’s just not happening. If the batting gets runs, the bowlers aren’t able to defend it and if the bowlers are getting the opposition out, the batting is collapsing.
“It’s really strange. I’ve never seen something like this in T20 cricket … it’s really energy-sapping and all you can do is carry on and keep trying our hardest. And to RCB’s fans, Kohli added: “I promise things can’t get worse than this and next year we hope to come back stronger.”
The entire cricket following base was astonished when RCB failed to perform and register wins match after match.
Ricky Ponting, the former Australian captain had criticized that Kohli had done next to nothing in the entire tournament. He however also mentioned that missing the services of KL Rahul who is injured was a vital point point for Bangalore’s poor performance in this season.
“KL Rahul is a massive loss for them,” Ponting told cricket.com.au. “He had a terrific back-end to last season. He did some amazing things last year so him not being at the top has been a big loss.
“Their big name players just aren’t standing up like they did last year,” Ponting said.
“They got on an amazing roll at the back end of last year’s tournament when Kohli was playing out of his skin, de Villiers was playing well, Gayle was chipping in and Watson was doing a good job with bat and ball.
“But so far Kohli has done next to nothing, there’s been flashes in the pan from Gayle and AB de Villiers, but the consistency just hasn’t been there.
In nine innings that he played, Kohli scored a mere 250 runs at an average of 27.77 that incuded three fifties with a highest of 64.
Bangalore currently stays at the bottom the points table after acquiring only 5 points from playing 13 matches. They face Delhi Daredevils in their last encounter of the tournament on 14th of May.