Virat Kohli’s decision to leave captaincy did not impact RCB’s performance: Mike Hesson
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) director of cricket and head coach Mike Hesson refused to blame Virat Kohli for announcing his retirement as captain after the current season for his team’s absurd performance against KKR in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Kohli had made it clear that he will continue playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore but won’t be captaining the team beyond the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 season.
Hesson opened up on the humiliating 9-wicket defeat against KKR, saying RCB were poor with the bat but he was confident that his team would turn around things very quickly.
RCB won the toss and opted to bat in Kohli’s landmark match but the former finalists failed to step up, managing just 92 in 19 overs. It was the 6th lowest total for RCB in the history of the IPL and their 7th sub-100 total in the tournament.
Then, the opening duo of Shubman Gill and debutant Venkatesh Iyer played some breathtaking shots and made light work of the chase of 93, completing the formality with as many as 10 overs to spare.
“I think it was actually to get any form of distraction out early. We talked about making that announcement as soon as possible really, all the players were aware of it. It has not impacted performance against KKR, we were not sharp with the bat, we lost wickets. But I am confident that this group will turn around pretty quickly,” Hesson said during a virtual post-match press conference.
“The team combination was not the problem today. To be fair, we probably got the toss wrong. It was not a 93-run wicket, we should have been able to get to 150. Whether that would have been enough or not, it is debatable because the ball started to slide down, but we were not sharp enough with the bat,” Hesson added.
AB de Villiers is an important player for us: Hesson
“AB de Villiers did not have the gloves, we have to look after him. He is an important player for us, he is not one we can risk behind the stumps so that was unfortunate for Rajat as we needed a keeper-bat to do the role for us at number three. To be fair, KS Bharat has been outstanding in the camp and he deserves his inclusion,” he further said.
“We were pretty clear in terms of Virat batting at the top, it is a lot harder to start against spin. We are very happy with Devdutt Padikkal and Virat opening the batting for us, high-quality players, left-right combination and KS Bharat can bat anywhere. We were forced for that change with AB de Villiers not keeping,” Hesson signed off.
