“His role was to bat deep and my job was to score boundaries” - Mahipal Lomror on partnership with Virat Kohli

Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batter Mahipal Lomror stated that he and Virat Kohli had specific roles during their partnership against Delhi Capitals (DC) on Saturday, May 6.

RCB went down to DC by seven wickets in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 match at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. While Kohli top-scored with 55 off 46 balls, Lomror hammered an unbeaten 54 off 29 deliveries.

The duo added 55 for the third wicket. However, some critics were not convinced by Kohli’s knock. The 34-year-old scored at a strike rate of 119.57 and hit only five fours. In the post-match press conference, though, Lomror explained that both he and Kohli stuck to the tasks assigned to them.

He elaborated:

“When I was batting with Virat, the gameplan was simple. His role was to bat deep and my job was to score a couple of boundaries in every over. When Kuldeep [Yadav] was bowling, it was turning a bit. It was important to put some pressure on him, so I took some risks and it paid off.”

Asked if he felt 180 was a par score, Lomror replied in the affirmative, adding that the bowlers could have done better. The 23-year-old commented:

“When we were batting, we were aiming for 165-170 because the wicket was spinning and it was slow as well. We felt it was a good score. If our bowling was a bit tighter, this would have been a very good score.”

Lomror struck six fours and three sixes in his impressive knock. However, Philip Salt’s 87 off 45 lifted DC to a thumping win.

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“Difficult to get big scores in my role” - Lomror

Reflecting on his role in the RCB batting unit, the southpaw said that it will be difficult for him to get big scores consistently because he has to play high-risk cricket.

Lomror explained:

"Difficult to get big scores in my role. My work is to go and disrupt the bowlers and it is difficult to score big in such a high-risk approach. My work is to play impactful knocks. Personally, it feels great to get a landmark. Honestly, I have wanted it for a while.”

The batter added that he likes batting on slow wickets since he is very good at playing strokes off the back foot.

The RCB youngster explained:

"I like slow wickets in general because you get a lot of balls to play off your back foot. And that is one of my strengths. I got help from the Delhi wickets because it was quite slow and I had a lot of time to hit the ball.”

Lomror has scored 132 runs in eight IPL 2023 matches at an average of 26.40 and a strike rate of 148.31.