Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) skipper Virat Kohli has been fined Rs 12 lakh for slow over rate against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in a nail-biting match on April 25. Kohli was fined Rs 12 lakh because it was RCB’s first offence in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018. If RCB do not maintain a good over rate in the next match, this could lead to a suspension as well.
Here’s what the IPL press release said, “As it was his team’s first offence of the season under the IPL’s Code of Conduct relating to minimum over-rate offences, Mr. Kohli was fined Rs 12 lakh.”
Kohli was seen having long discussions with bowlers in the death overs. He was also talking to RCB’s bowling coach Ashish Nehra at the boundary line. He tried communicating the instructions to his inexperienced bowlers when MS Dhoni and Ambati Rayudu were taking the game away.
RCB lost their fourth match of the season out of the six they played. It was a golden chance for them at home ground M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru to win against CSK. Despite putting a mammoth total of 205 runs for 8 wickets in the first innings, their bowlers faltered in the death overs and gave CSK their fifth win of this season.
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Kohli was gutted with his bowlers’ performance after the match as it was clear from the post-match press conference. He said,
“The way we bowled is just not acceptable. Just not good enough on the day, 72/4 and giving away runs like that for just 1 wicket is criminal. Something that we need to address going forward because we haven’t bowled well. If we cannot defend even 200, it’s a problem somewhere. It hurts at the moment, very tough for us to swallow but great game for Chennai.”
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Kohli scored just 18 runs from 15 deliveries. AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock scored half-centuries to help RCB go past the 200-run mark and pose a threat to CSK’s in-form batting lineup. RCB are currently sixth with two wins from 6 games. They need to win at least six games to make it into IPL 2018 qualifiers.
