Virat Kohli explains why Ab de Villiers batted at No 6 against KXIP

RCB surprised everyone on Thursday pushing AB de Villiers down the order- from his usual fourth to sixth.

Skipper Virat Kohli explained the rationale behind the call. “We had a chat, a message from outside about left-right combination and we wanted to go with it because they had two leggies. Sometimes things don’t come off. We’re pretty happy with the decisions we took, but it didn’t come off. Having 170 was a decent score. The idea was to let Dube and Sundar to get their eye in,” said Kohli in the post-match presentation after Kings XI defeated his side by 8 wickets.

Kohli admitted that RCB were not in the match on Thursday night. “It was quite surprising as we thought the game might finish in the 18th over. A bit of pressure at the back end can confuse you, anything can happen in this game. It was a good performance by KXIP and we were not in the game tonight.”

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Kohli said the Kings XI Punjab bowled really well on this night and did not strike any conversation with Yuzvendra Chahal, who bowled the last over defending just three runs and then extended the match to the last ball.

“They bowled well. It’s not a great ground for bowlers but that’s not an excuse. We take pride in our bowling. It didn’t come off and we have to accept it and take responsibility. There’s always something to learn and understand. There was no conversation with Chahal. The only conversation was when the last ball was on, we wanted him to push it away (from batsman). Credit to Nicholas (Pooran) as we did not think he would come out of the crease.”