Batting unit applied well, says Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli, said the batting unit had discussed what they needed to do differently and were able to apply themselves and find a template that worked

Hyderabad: Virat Kohli, who played a key role for Royal Challengers Bengaluru in its thrilling win against Rajasthan Royals in the IPL league match on Thursday night in Bengaluru, said the batting unit had discussed what they needed to do differently and were able to apply themselves and find a template that worked.

“We’ve had three pretty average games at home and we discussed a few things in the batting unit that we need to get right and I think we applied ourselves well enough today to get that total on the board,” Kohli told JioHotstar after the team’s first home game win this season. “We felt like the pitch wasn’t as flat as the score displayed on the scoreboard. I think the template is simple, you know, one of the guys to kind of bat through and the others to kind of attack around him,” Kohli said.

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“So I have that responsibility. I know this pitch very well, and so does Devdutt. So yeah, that was basically the plan. Let Salty (Phil Salt) do his thing and then once we have a couple of wickets down, then really capitalise and rebuild and yeah, today it paid off,” the star performer said.

“There’s pace and bounce in the first three-four overs with the new ball, especially in the first innings. So I think we were trying to force the shots a bit too much in the last three games,” he said.

“We let the ball come to us and, you know, really time the ball into the gaps and I think that was the adjustment and the application that I spoke about to assess the pitch and then find our options and then hopefully put enough pressure on the opposition for them to keep giving us boundary balls, which was the case today and we were able to capitalise on those,” Kohli said. “So heading into the last three more home games, I think we should be in a better position to try and get those 25-30 extra runs,” he said.